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Justine Reichman:: Hello, and
welcome to the Essential
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Ingredients Podcast. I'm your
host, Justine. As always, I'm so
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pleased to have you all here.
We're joined today with VC
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Founder Riana Lynn. Riana is the
Founder of Journey Foods, a tool
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for CPG Founders that promises
to revolutionize recipe
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development and sourcing. You
won't want to miss this one, so
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stay tuned.
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Welcome to the Essential
Ingredients Podcast. I'm so
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happy to have you here. What a
great opportunity to hear from a
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female Founder, somebody who's
an entrepreneur, and also
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providing such a great resource
to the community. So Riana,
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welcome.
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Riana Lynn:: Thank you, Justine,
so good to be here. I've been
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diving into some of your other
recent episodes, and happy to
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have this conversation.
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Justine Reichman:: Great. I'm so
pleased. As an entrepreneur, you
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kicked off your own initiative,
and dreamt this up. And as you
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were mentioning to me before,
ever since you were a little
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kid, you've been kind of on this
journey. Excuse me. So just for
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those folks so we can get
everyone on the same page, we're
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going to talk to you about being
an entrepreneur. We're going to
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talk to you about being a female
founder, and we're going to talk
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to you about this resource that
you built. So before we get into
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all of it, can you just let
everybody know what Journey
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Foods is?
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Riana Lynn:: Yeah. So Journey
Foods is the modern day
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consultant to your food
formulation and supplier worker
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needs. When Journey Foods was
founded right before the
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pandemic, we sort of launched
full time after a couple years
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of pilots while I was still
working in VC. We sought out
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first to solve large nutrition
issues in rapid pace. So when
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you're looking to formulate a
product based on consumer
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nutrition, or allergen, or
functional needs? It can take
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many, many months. And we
thought as a team, and just a
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background being a scientist,
how do we use AI powered science
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to accelerate what several
humans take on a lab and on a
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test kitchen to get the perfect
recipe in just minutes or hours.
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And so Journey Foods launched as
an AI white paper with test
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products around fruit snacks,
where we wanted to get the
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optimal nutrient dense fruit
snack that was free of additives
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and food dyes. And I presented
that at San Francisco Future
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Food in March of 2019, spent a
year and a half building the
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platform. Now today, we are an
AI operational scientist for
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nutrition formulations,
sustainability formulations, all
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paired with supply chain
insights and costs. And so we've
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built the world's most
actionable nutrition database
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that help companies, that helps
companies rapidly formulate
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their product recipes for the $3
trillion package food market, or
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they can come in and reformulate
products that exist today.
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Whether that be for a supply
chain crunch, or to switch out
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their products to be gluten
free, or bring in functional
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medicine within their food. Lots
of different scenarios for our
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customers today. But our goal
has been, from day one, to
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improve the nutrition and the
cost for these products, but
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save lots of time.
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Justine Reichman:: Wow. It's
huge what you're doing. It's
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just huge, and it allows smaller
organizations even to have a
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resource that they might not
otherwise have the ability to
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access. So I have to ask, I
heard you say you were a VC. I
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heard you say you were a
chemist. I mean, your background
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is so varied. What drove you
specifically here?
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Riana Lynn:: The road was, how
do I keep innovating in food?
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Justine Reichman:: That's
amazing, and it really resonates
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And sometimes, why food? When I
was studying biology and
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nutrition, genetics and
chemistry, my goal was to launch
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into a career that could solve
chronic disease, particularly
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diabetes and cancer. Things that
were facing, my family members.
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And the more time I stood in
community with my family, with
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friends, within research
communities, I found that the
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underlying theme was food.
Majority of the world's
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malnutrition, whether that be
eating too much bad food or
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eating too little, and hunger
related illnesses and chronic
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disease. Most of the deaths
attributed with chronic disease
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are related to food, and I
wanted to be able to solve a
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problem to see my grandmother
and my parents live longer.
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Truly, that was just like, what
can I do to help my family live
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with me. I'm sure it's going to
resonate with so many people on
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longer? And then maybe I can
live longer if I have that same
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genetic pathway. And then from
there, you start to realize that
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it's not just some family
members, or a poor family on the
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south side of Chicago that's in
the middle of food desert. When
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I launched my first food company
with the family member, I
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started to see that there were
wealthy middle aged white woman
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that we're living in some of the
most wealthy zip codes in the
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country coming to us to solve
issues with their gut and with
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cancer, and drink fresh and raw
foods, right? And so you see
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that this issue, especially in
the United States, has no socio
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economic barriers. And it was
that turning point in grad
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school about 15 years ago when I
decided that this is really not
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going to change by me getting a
master's in public health and
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going to DC, even though I spent
time at the White House and
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Department of Health and Human
Services where RFK is trying to
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chop that up right now. But I
thought it was really going to
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be ME as an entrepreneur and
working with these more private
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companies where we were going to
see the most change, or where I
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could be a part of the biggest
change here.
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so many levels. But as you're
saying this, and I'll just share
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this with you, but I created a
sizzle reel for a docu series
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because my mother had cancer,
and my mother had ALS. And I saw
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all these people, including my
mother, go off to places that
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were not science backed just
because of hope, and catching,
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and trying to hold on to
something because they were
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scared of Western medicine, or
they were scared of the unknown,
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or they're just desperate. And
it inspired me to also create
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this platform because I really
want people to be able to be
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inspired and make a choice, a
more informed choice for
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themselves. And the only way I
knew how to support that
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endeavor was to give people the
platform, get the experts and
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the people that are in this
world sharing that information.
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Because if you can talk to these
people and then they hear your
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story, it inspires them to
create change to make a
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difference, and be curious.
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Riana Lynn:: Yes. The curiosity
was important for me. As I
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started to dive in and think
about the ways we were working
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to bring new products to the
market with these consultants
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and these manufacturing food
technologies, I started to ask
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questions like, I want to create
a gummy a fruit. These smoothie
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cubes, they're not really gummy
bears, but these smoothie cubes
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fruit snacks. And I was asking,
how do we get one that looks
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just like a white dragon fruit?
And they said, you have to
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bleach it. You have to add some
dioxides and other things to it
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to get this lasting white color
that you probably love in white
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jelly beans and other things.
And I said, absolutely not.
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We're not going to do this. And
so I think that many times, my
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curiosity about myself like, am
I going to get diabetes at 50
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years old? Because every
generation is getting chronic
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disease earlier than our
parents, right? I'm so happy
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that you shared that story about
your mother because there's
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probably been times when you're
looking at your mom trying to
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find these decisions and go out
to alternative medicine and
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thinking to yourself, this could
happen to me in 15 and 20 years,
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right? And so you want to have
the platform here for yourself.
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You want to share things that
are happening to your mom, but
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you also want to make sure that
people understand these
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journeys, and you can share your
curiosity. And I put my
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curiosity into building this
database. Into building a team
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of scientists and AI engineers.
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Justine Reichman:: It's amazing.
And so as you've built this over
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the last few years, what was
your journey like in terms of,
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you went from being a VC to now
being an entrepreneur? You're on
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different ends of the spectrum
here, right? What was that
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journey like for you?
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Riana Lynn:: I think at first,
at times, it's challenging. You
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leave a nice salary to then have
to create your salary. You have
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to pay other people first to get
the product ready and fly all
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over the country and world to
get money. And so I was starting
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to do that quite a bit, and
seeking really creative VCs that
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understood that AI was going to
be two to three years ahead of
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of the AI investment trends.
It's a roller coaster, truly,
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being an entrepreneur. And the
highs are just so much higher
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than what you can get being a
VC, I think, being on the
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ground, being an operator. But
it comes with challenges to
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being a minority woman that said
we're going to create AI food
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scientists five years ago. And
the food scientists being like,
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absolutely not. That's never
possible, right? You can't
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replace us. And I'm just like
this, I'm looking at your
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spreadsheets, and it makes so
much sense. I'm seeing what
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you're charging other
entrepreneurs, and I don't
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understand why there's 200 food
scientists at Beyond Meat to
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create a sausage. Those are the
things that I just really didn't
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understand, and just clearly
didn't make sense. And for me,
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few years later, I think is
really trying to make sense for
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people.
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Justine Reichman:: I think
people are getting more
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comfortable and familiar with AI
and integrating that into how
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we're developing things. Because
I think before, it was a little
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scary, and it's still a little
scary for some people. They're
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still not sure what role it's
going to play, and how reliable
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it is, and how much you have to
tweak it. There's a lot of
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unknowns for people, but the
potential is so great. And what
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you're creating is so great.
It's just a matter of having a
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little faith and being open to
something new, that's what
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innovation is about anyway,
right?
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Riana Lynn:: Exactly, exactly. I
think that's why we have been so
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intent on creating operational
data supply chain scores, cost
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scores, because that's really
drives people's decisions. They
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want to help people eat better.
WE as Founders, WE as company
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managers and CEOs, or just
managers of our homes, we want
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to eat better. We want the world
to eat better. We want the world
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to have less impact on
biodiversity, nature and things.
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But at the end of the day, it's
like, can we afford this? Can I
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get it? Does it cost me a lot of
time and convenience? And now,
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those are questions that we ask
usually first, and that's what
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we started to really focus on
2021 and 22 is knowing that
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behaviorally, we need to make
sure that people understand our
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models, at least at Journey
Foods, that cost and supply
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chain availability is just as
important.
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Justine Reichman:: I also think
that it's not about saying, can
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we afford this? It's about, how
can we not afford this? How do
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we make it work? How do we
choose us, and our future
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family, and our next generations
to be able to have the best
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possible options accessible to
them? And I think it's through
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education, information,
transparency and also curiosity.
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Without curiosity, people are
not going to better understand
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why they should make that
choice, or how to know that
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there are other options.
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Riana Lynn:: I think consumers
now and company leaders are
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becoming more curious on what
the alternatives are, and not
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just following simple workflows
and playbooks, but the
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transparency and in the ability
to educate around the
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possibilities. The alternative
possibilities of manufacturing,
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the alternative ingredients that
are available, and how they can
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be incorporated into our
everyday grocery and foods?
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These are questions that we have
to continue to model. Don't want
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to ask ourselves every single
every that we're running
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companies, or that we're going
to the grocery store to shop.
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Justine Reichman:: And I think
that for the end consumers, it's
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also different, right? Some end
consumers don't know the answers
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to all of those questions, but
make a decision based on what
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they hear, partial information.
So I think it's important also
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for end consumers to be a little
bit more curious, and not just
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say, oh, organic is better. Why
is organic better? Here are some
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foods that would make it much
better without palm oil and with
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this thing. Now, maybe they've
heard this, but they don't know
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why. Aand I think it's incumbent
upon the organizations that are
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doing this to really shed some
clarity on thi,s and light on
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this, and educate on this. And I
think people are doing that, but
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I still think there's so many
people making decisions blindly.
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Riana Lynn:: I think when you
walk into a grocery store and
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it's like, yeah, you get local,
right? You get this, this came
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from the farmer in the county or
the town over, but everything
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else is very confusing. The
coding on our labels to what
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organic is in the US versus
other places. How it's managed?
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Why it costs so much more? What
is conventional? What is
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process, unprocessed? What is
natural? I mean, these are
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questions that we have done.
Have good education around, and
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answers too. These are things
that we're not taught in school,
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right? We're just taught our
plate features and that we
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should eat sugar sparingly. And
so you try not to eat candy,
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then you realize sugars and
everything because we built the
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food system around it. So it can
be a challenge if you're not
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that curious. But I think more
than ever, consumers have a very
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unique time to use social media,
to use website traffic and have
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downloads, and purchasing power
to push manufacturers and
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business owners to be more
creative and more curious around
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alternatives. And I think we're
closer than we think, but it
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will take some investment in
infrastructure, and these are
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things that I think are ripe for
disruption.
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Justine Reichman:: Oh, I
couldn't agree more. I think
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people need to just steamroll
ahead, almost to continue this
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progress. Because I think we're
seeing some progress, but I
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still think that we need to see
more. So I'm curious. I know
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that you said you were inspired
by your family and trying to
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solve a problem there, but you
created this great solution for
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all these entrepreneurs. I'm
curious if there's any
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statistics that you could show
through what you've built on the
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amount of people you've now been
able to help, serve both to
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build their businesses, and
create a better for you
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solution.
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Riana Lynn:: There's several
numbers that I can share. So to
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date, we've helped over 400
companies with formulation, new
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formulations or formulations for
packaged products that are
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either E commerce or in grocery
stores. Some of the small
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percentage of them being also
restaurants and chefs that have
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launched packaged products in
their restaurants or chains, as
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well as a good percentage of
those being ingredient suppliers
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that are supplying novel
ingredients, additives and dyes,
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natural extracted dyes, to these
many companies. We have hundreds
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of thousands of ingredients,
tens of thousands that have been
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audited. To date, over 17,000
skew recommendations for
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improvements. We're now in 18
countries. Just launched in our
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fourth Asian country last over
the past couple of weeks. We
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have saved companies over $12
million in recommendations
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around cost. I could go on and
on with this. Companies range
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from pre revenue with a little
bit of money to spend on some
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new product, but not as much as
you need for a big time
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consultant to multi billion
dollar private label, some of
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the biggest companies in the
world that we've supported in
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innovation.
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Justine Reichman:: So if you
look at that and you say, okay,
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you have everything. From small
to large, right? What percentage
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of those people might not have,
or those organizations might not
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have been able to build out
without a resource like yours
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because of lack of funding, or
lack of resources?
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Riana Lynn:: Yeah. Over 18%. And
we think that number is going to
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grow quite rapidly in the coming
months and years. There was a
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00:20:23,360 --> 00:20:26,990
little bit of pull back in 2020
because people were scared about
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00:20:26,990 --> 00:20:32,030
fundraising and logistics, but
things have started to shift up.
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00:20:32,300 --> 00:20:35,180
Now, there's a little bit of
change in funding, and so
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entrepreneurs are a little
scrappier. They want to spend
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less money and get things to the
market faster. So think now that
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our data is much more efficient,
we've seen a lot more small
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companies come for demos and
prepare to get in our pipeline.
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And we want to continue to lower
the cost to entry for them. So
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the more data we have, the more
we raise money. The more I feel
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comfortable with the access to
the platform, the faster we're
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going to get more small
companies from around the world
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to sign up and scale with us.
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Justine Reichman:: What is the
budget for entry?
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Riana Lynn:: You can enter as
little as $60 a year where you
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just list a couple ingredients
on the platform, and you can get
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a dashboard that helps you
understand what kind of
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companies are trying to buy your
ingredient. That's very basic if
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you're just a supplier. Now, if
you're a CPG company, it starts
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at a few hundreds and goes to
about 2800 a year.
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Justine Reichman:: Wow. But that
sounds a lot less expensive and
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00:21:50,380 --> 00:21:53,770
a lot more accessible than going
to get a chemist, and trying to
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get your own, and trying to get
everything built with lots of
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minimums, etcetera, to be able
to do this. And time and effort.
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Riana Lynn:: And even if you
want additional services like
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test kitchens and other
pathology reports and things, we
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have a partner network with big
discounts, and we support you
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through that as well. So it's
great to start with us and then
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branch out as you get ready to
launch. But we do monitoring
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over time as well, so you can
monitor for pricing updates, or
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know regulatory changes. Maybe
one of your ingredients is going
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to be banned, or perhaps
consumers are looking for a
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change. And I think it's great
to have that long term analysis
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as you scale the life cycle of
your company or a ptoduct.
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Justine Reichman:: It's amazing
to have those resources and to
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have that information, it's like
you have an on demand news
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release.
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Riana Lynn:: Yeah. On demand
food scientists, that is really
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well read.
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Justine Reichman:: Yeah. That's
amazing. Because I think that
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00:23:01,030 --> 00:23:04,000
sometimes, we get our news and
then things happen later. But to
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00:23:04,000 --> 00:23:08,530
be able to get that as fresh
news, it allows people to be at
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the forefront and to create
greater change based on what the
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research is saying so early on.
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Riana Lynn:: Yes. And I think
that we're just going to get
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better. Our models are just
going to get better at
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00:23:22,180 --> 00:23:27,910
supporting companies here, and
would love to offer discount
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code to your listeners.
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Justine Reichman:: Oh, that
would be amazing. Thank you for
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00:23:32,740 --> 00:23:33,040
that.
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Riana Lynn:: Suppliers, or CPG
founders, or managers, they can
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check us out. We have some
really big launches coming up
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this year. I don't know,
assuming it's gonna be a few
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00:23:50,640 --> 00:23:54,060
weeks of this launches, but
we're launching packaging AI,
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first company to really have
packaging AI recommendations
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based on everything from dioxins
in your film, right? That could
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00:24:03,930 --> 00:24:09,480
be polluting the body too,
things that are more based
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00:24:09,480 --> 00:24:15,600
around structure. We're also
launching a large partnership to
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00:24:15,600 --> 00:24:19,710
get funding through the
platform. So if you have to
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00:24:20,310 --> 00:24:26,250
increase your inventory, or buy
new product, or machinery, we
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00:24:26,700 --> 00:24:34,380
support in our testing. We're
testing co-underwriting process
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00:24:34,380 --> 00:24:40,140
so that you can get a loan for
that healthy update to your your
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product recipe.
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Justine Reichman:: Amazing.
There's so many resources, and
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00:24:45,780 --> 00:24:48,540
I'd love to be able to share
them with the community. Is
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00:24:48,540 --> 00:24:51,780
there a list you might be able
to include for us to share with
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the community?
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00:24:55,650 --> 00:24:58,800
Riana Lynn:: Just check out
Journey Foods.
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00:24:58,800 --> 00:25:00,630
Justine Reichman:: Best if we
send them to your website.
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00:25:00,000 --> 00:25:03,420
Riana Lynn:: Yes. Send them to
our website, journeyfoods.io.
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00:25:05,340 --> 00:25:10,290
You can follow me and our
Journey Foods newsletter - The
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00:25:10,290 --> 00:25:15,840
Pie for updates. We'll be sure
to share this interview there,
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00:25:16,350 --> 00:25:20,340
and follow up with a discount
code as well.
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Justine Reichman:: Awesome. We
will make sure to follow up with
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you so we can throw that in the
show notes for our guests, for
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00:25:28,740 --> 00:25:32,490
those guests that are tuning in
today. But Riana, thank you so
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00:25:32,490 --> 00:25:34,950
much for joining us today. It's
so exciting to hear what you're
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00:25:34,950 --> 00:25:38,100
building and the opportunities
it's going to be able to provide
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for so many people that might
not otherwise have had that
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00:25:41,130 --> 00:25:47,280
access to be able to do that.
I'm grateful to have had you on
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00:25:47,280 --> 00:25:51,540
as a resource, and as a female
founder. And I look forward to
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00:25:51,870 --> 00:25:54,960
meeting you next week at Expo
West when we're both there.
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Riana Lynn:: I look forward to
trying out all the snacks, and
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00:25:59,760 --> 00:26:04,110
hopefully seeing you within the
Expo hall. But thank you so
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much, Justine, for your time,
and for the questions, and for
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this platform.
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Justine Reichman:: Awesome.
Thanks so much, Riana, we'll
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00:26:12,330 --> 00:26:16,170
talk soon,. I want to thank our
guests and our community that
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00:26:16,170 --> 00:26:19,680
tune in each week, whether it's
to be inspired, or to hear a new
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00:26:19,680 --> 00:26:22,320
story, or to check out our
resources.
00:00:15,030 --> 00:00:16,500
Justine Reichman:: Hello, and
welcome to the Essential
2
00:00:16,500 --> 00:00:21,450
Ingredients Podcast. I'm your
host, Justine. As always, I'm so
3
00:00:21,450 --> 00:00:24,540
pleased to have you all here.
We're joined today with VC
4
00:00:24,540 --> 00:00:29,430
Founder Riana Lynn. Riana is the
Founder of Journey Foods, a tool
5
00:00:29,430 --> 00:00:32,730
for CPG Founders that promises
to revolutionize recipe
6
00:00:32,730 --> 00:00:35,460
development and sourcing. You
won't want to miss this one, so
7
00:00:35,460 --> 00:00:36,360
stay tuned.
8
00:00:37,770 --> 00:00:40,260
Welcome to the Essential
Ingredients Podcast. I'm so
9
00:00:40,260 --> 00:00:43,440
happy to have you here. What a
great opportunity to hear from a
10
00:00:43,440 --> 00:00:46,350
female Founder, somebody who's
an entrepreneur, and also
11
00:00:46,350 --> 00:00:49,440
providing such a great resource
to the community. So Riana,
12
00:00:49,440 --> 00:00:50,010
welcome.
13
00:00:50,910 --> 00:00:53,670
Riana Lynn:: Thank you, Justine,
so good to be here. I've been
14
00:00:53,940 --> 00:00:57,360
diving into some of your other
recent episodes, and happy to
15
00:00:57,360 --> 00:00:58,320
have this conversation.
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00:00:59,920 --> 00:01:03,430
Justine Reichman:: Great. I'm so
pleased. As an entrepreneur, you
17
00:01:03,430 --> 00:01:07,420
kicked off your own initiative,
and dreamt this up. And as you
18
00:01:07,420 --> 00:01:09,550
were mentioning to me before,
ever since you were a little
19
00:01:09,550 --> 00:01:14,530
kid, you've been kind of on this
journey. Excuse me. So just for
20
00:01:14,530 --> 00:01:18,580
those folks so we can get
everyone on the same page, we're
21
00:01:18,580 --> 00:01:20,710
going to talk to you about being
an entrepreneur. We're going to
22
00:01:20,710 --> 00:01:22,630
talk to you about being a female
founder, and we're going to talk
23
00:01:22,630 --> 00:01:27,640
to you about this resource that
you built. So before we get into
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00:01:27,640 --> 00:01:29,860
all of it, can you just let
everybody know what Journey
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00:01:29,860 --> 00:01:30,670
Foods is?
26
00:01:31,050 --> 00:01:35,580
Riana Lynn:: Yeah. So Journey
Foods is the modern day
27
00:01:36,510 --> 00:01:42,030
consultant to your food
formulation and supplier worker
28
00:01:42,030 --> 00:01:48,690
needs. When Journey Foods was
founded right before the
29
00:01:48,690 --> 00:01:52,650
pandemic, we sort of launched
full time after a couple years
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00:01:52,650 --> 00:01:56,700
of pilots while I was still
working in VC. We sought out
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00:01:56,760 --> 00:02:03,720
first to solve large nutrition
issues in rapid pace. So when
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00:02:03,720 --> 00:02:09,360
you're looking to formulate a
product based on consumer
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00:02:09,360 --> 00:02:13,170
nutrition, or allergen, or
functional needs? It can take
34
00:02:13,170 --> 00:02:19,050
many, many months. And we
thought as a team, and just a
35
00:02:19,050 --> 00:02:24,090
background being a scientist,
how do we use AI powered science
36
00:02:24,870 --> 00:02:32,400
to accelerate what several
humans take on a lab and on a
37
00:02:32,400 --> 00:02:38,790
test kitchen to get the perfect
recipe in just minutes or hours.
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00:02:39,000 --> 00:02:44,580
And so Journey Foods launched as
an AI white paper with test
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00:02:44,580 --> 00:02:48,120
products around fruit snacks,
where we wanted to get the
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00:02:48,120 --> 00:02:53,580
optimal nutrient dense fruit
snack that was free of additives
41
00:02:53,580 --> 00:03:02,370
and food dyes. And I presented
that at San Francisco Future
42
00:03:02,370 --> 00:03:09,120
Food in March of 2019, spent a
year and a half building the
43
00:03:09,120 --> 00:03:14,640
platform. Now today, we are an
AI operational scientist for
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00:03:14,790 --> 00:03:19,200
nutrition formulations,
sustainability formulations, all
45
00:03:19,200 --> 00:03:23,520
paired with supply chain
insights and costs. And so we've
46
00:03:23,520 --> 00:03:26,160
built the world's most
actionable nutrition database
47
00:03:26,520 --> 00:03:30,690
that help companies, that helps
companies rapidly formulate
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00:03:30,840 --> 00:03:35,730
their product recipes for the $3
trillion package food market, or
49
00:03:35,730 --> 00:03:39,900
they can come in and reformulate
products that exist today.
50
00:03:39,960 --> 00:03:44,790
Whether that be for a supply
chain crunch, or to switch out
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00:03:44,790 --> 00:03:48,450
their products to be gluten
free, or bring in functional
52
00:03:48,450 --> 00:03:52,590
medicine within their food. Lots
of different scenarios for our
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00:03:52,590 --> 00:03:56,610
customers today. But our goal
has been, from day one, to
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00:03:56,610 --> 00:04:00,390
improve the nutrition and the
cost for these products, but
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save lots of time.
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Justine Reichman:: Wow. It's
huge what you're doing. It's
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00:04:07,500 --> 00:04:11,850
just huge, and it allows smaller
organizations even to have a
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00:04:11,850 --> 00:04:14,850
resource that they might not
otherwise have the ability to
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00:04:14,850 --> 00:04:20,160
access. So I have to ask, I
heard you say you were a VC. I
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00:04:20,160 --> 00:04:23,070
heard you say you were a
chemist. I mean, your background
61
00:04:23,070 --> 00:04:26,880
is so varied. What drove you
specifically here?
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00:04:26,300 --> 00:04:30,394
Riana Lynn:: The road was, how
do I keep innovating in food?
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Justine Reichman:: That's
amazing, and it really resonates
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And sometimes, why food? When I
was studying biology and
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00:04:35,447 --> 00:04:40,326
nutrition, genetics and
chemistry, my goal was to launch
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00:04:40,413 --> 00:04:45,640
into a career that could solve
chronic disease, particularly
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00:04:45,727 --> 00:04:51,303
diabetes and cancer. Things that
were facing, my family members.
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And the more time I stood in
community with my family, with
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00:04:56,618 --> 00:05:01,322
friends, within research
communities, I found that the
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underlying theme was food.
Majority of the world's
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00:05:05,852 --> 00:05:10,818
malnutrition, whether that be
eating too much bad food or
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00:05:10,905 --> 00:05:16,046
eating too little, and hunger
related illnesses and chronic
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disease. Most of the deaths
attributed with chronic disease
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00:05:21,360 --> 00:05:26,152
are related to food, and I
wanted to be able to solve a
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00:05:26,239 --> 00:05:31,205
problem to see my grandmother
and my parents live longer.
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Truly, that was just like, what
can I do to help my family live
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with me. I'm sure it's going to
resonate with so many people on
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longer? And then maybe I can
live longer if I have that same
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genetic pathway. And then from
there, you start to realize that
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it's not just some family
members, or a poor family on the
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south side of Chicago that's in
the middle of food desert. When
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I launched my first food company
with the family member, I
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started to see that there were
wealthy middle aged white woman
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that we're living in some of the
most wealthy zip codes in the
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country coming to us to solve
issues with their gut and with
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cancer, and drink fresh and raw
foods, right? And so you see
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that this issue, especially in
the United States, has no socio
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economic barriers. And it was
that turning point in grad
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school about 15 years ago when I
decided that this is really not
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going to change by me getting a
master's in public health and
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going to DC, even though I spent
time at the White House and
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Department of Health and Human
Services where RFK is trying to
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chop that up right now. But I
thought it was really going to
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be ME as an entrepreneur and
working with these more private
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companies where we were going to
see the most change, or where I
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could be a part of the biggest
change here.
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so many levels. But as you're
saying this, and I'll just share
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this with you, but I created a
sizzle reel for a docu series
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because my mother had cancer,
and my mother had ALS. And I saw
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all these people, including my
mother, go off to places that
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were not science backed just
because of hope, and catching,
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and trying to hold on to
something because they were
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scared of Western medicine, or
they were scared of the unknown,
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or they're just desperate. And
it inspired me to also create
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this platform because I really
want people to be able to be
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inspired and make a choice, a
more informed choice for
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themselves. And the only way I
knew how to support that
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endeavor was to give people the
platform, get the experts and
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the people that are in this
world sharing that information.
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Because if you can talk to these
people and then they hear your
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story, it inspires them to
create change to make a
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difference, and be curious.
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Riana Lynn:: Yes. The curiosity
was important for me. As I
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started to dive in and think
about the ways we were working
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to bring new products to the
market with these consultants
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and these manufacturing food
technologies, I started to ask
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questions like, I want to create
a gummy a fruit. These smoothie
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cubes, they're not really gummy
bears, but these smoothie cubes
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fruit snacks. And I was asking,
how do we get one that looks
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just like a white dragon fruit?
And they said, you have to
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bleach it. You have to add some
dioxides and other things to it
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to get this lasting white color
that you probably love in white
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jelly beans and other things.
And I said, absolutely not.
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We're not going to do this. And
so I think that many times, my
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curiosity about myself like, am
I going to get diabetes at 50
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years old? Because every
generation is getting chronic
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disease earlier than our
parents, right? I'm so happy
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that you shared that story about
your mother because there's
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probably been times when you're
looking at your mom trying to
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find these decisions and go out
to alternative medicine and
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thinking to yourself, this could
happen to me in 15 and 20 years,
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right? And so you want to have
the platform here for yourself.
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You want to share things that
are happening to your mom, but
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you also want to make sure that
people understand these
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journeys, and you can share your
curiosity. And I put my
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curiosity into building this
database. Into building a team
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of scientists and AI engineers.
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Justine Reichman:: It's amazing.
And so as you've built this over
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the last few years, what was
your journey like in terms of,
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you went from being a VC to now
being an entrepreneur? You're on
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different ends of the spectrum
here, right? What was that
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journey like for you?
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Riana Lynn:: I think at first,
at times, it's challenging. You
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leave a nice salary to then have
to create your salary. You have
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to pay other people first to get
the product ready and fly all
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over the country and world to
get money. And so I was starting
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to do that quite a bit, and
seeking really creative VCs that
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understood that AI was going to
be two to three years ahead of
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of the AI investment trends.
It's a roller coaster, truly,
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being an entrepreneur. And the
highs are just so much higher
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than what you can get being a
VC, I think, being on the
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ground, being an operator. But
it comes with challenges to
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being a minority woman that said
we're going to create AI food
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scientists five years ago. And
the food scientists being like,
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absolutely not. That's never
possible, right? You can't
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replace us. And I'm just like
this, I'm looking at your
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spreadsheets, and it makes so
much sense. I'm seeing what
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you're charging other
entrepreneurs, and I don't
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understand why there's 200 food
scientists at Beyond Meat to
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create a sausage. Those are the
things that I just really didn't
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understand, and just clearly
didn't make sense. And for me,
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few years later, I think is
really trying to make sense for
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people.
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Justine Reichman:: I think
people are getting more
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comfortable and familiar with AI
and integrating that into how
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we're developing things. Because
I think before, it was a little
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scary, and it's still a little
scary for some people. They're
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still not sure what role it's
going to play, and how reliable
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it is, and how much you have to
tweak it. There's a lot of
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unknowns for people, but the
potential is so great. And what
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you're creating is so great.
It's just a matter of having a
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little faith and being open to
something new, that's what
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innovation is about anyway,
right?
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Riana Lynn:: Exactly, exactly. I
think that's why we have been so
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intent on creating operational
data supply chain scores, cost
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scores, because that's really
drives people's decisions. They
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want to help people eat better.
WE as Founders, WE as company
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managers and CEOs, or just
managers of our homes, we want
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to eat better. We want the world
to eat better. We want the world
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to have less impact on
biodiversity, nature and things.
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But at the end of the day, it's
like, can we afford this? Can I
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get it? Does it cost me a lot of
time and convenience? And now,
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those are questions that we ask
usually first, and that's what
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we started to really focus on
2021 and 22 is knowing that
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behaviorally, we need to make
sure that people understand our
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models, at least at Journey
Foods, that cost and supply
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chain availability is just as
important.
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Justine Reichman:: I also think
that it's not about saying, can
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we afford this? It's about, how
can we not afford this? How do
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we make it work? How do we
choose us, and our future
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family, and our next generations
to be able to have the best
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possible options accessible to
them? And I think it's through
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education, information,
transparency and also curiosity.
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Without curiosity, people are
not going to better understand
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why they should make that
choice, or how to know that
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there are other options.
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Riana Lynn:: I think consumers
now and company leaders are
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becoming more curious on what
the alternatives are, and not
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just following simple workflows
and playbooks, but the
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transparency and in the ability
to educate around the
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possibilities. The alternative
possibilities of manufacturing,
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the alternative ingredients that
are available, and how they can
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be incorporated into our
everyday grocery and foods?
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These are questions that we have
to continue to model. Don't want
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to ask ourselves every single
every that we're running
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companies, or that we're going
to the grocery store to shop.
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Justine Reichman:: And I think
that for the end consumers, it's
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also different, right? Some end
consumers don't know the answers
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to all of those questions, but
make a decision based on what
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they hear, partial information.
So I think it's important also
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for end consumers to be a little
bit more curious, and not just
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say, oh, organic is better. Why
is organic better? Here are some
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foods that would make it much
better without palm oil and with
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this thing. Now, maybe they've
heard this, but they don't know
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why. Aand I think it's incumbent
upon the organizations that are
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doing this to really shed some
clarity on thi,s and light on
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this, and educate on this. And I
think people are doing that, but
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I still think there's so many
people making decisions blindly.
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Riana Lynn:: I think when you
walk into a grocery store and
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it's like, yeah, you get local,
right? You get this, this came
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from the farmer in the county or
the town over, but everything
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else is very confusing. The
coding on our labels to what
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organic is in the US versus
other places. How it's managed?
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Why it costs so much more? What
is conventional? What is
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process, unprocessed? What is
natural? I mean, these are
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questions that we have done.
Have good education around, and
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answers too. These are things
that we're not taught in school,
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right? We're just taught our
plate features and that we
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should eat sugar sparingly. And
so you try not to eat candy,
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then you realize sugars and
everything because we built the
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food system around it. So it can
be a challenge if you're not
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that curious. But I think more
than ever, consumers have a very
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unique time to use social media,
to use website traffic and have
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downloads, and purchasing power
to push manufacturers and
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business owners to be more
creative and more curious around
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alternatives. And I think we're
closer than we think, but it
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will take some investment in
infrastructure, and these are
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things that I think are ripe for
disruption.
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Justine Reichman:: Oh, I
couldn't agree more. I think
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people need to just steamroll
ahead, almost to continue this
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progress. Because I think we're
seeing some progress, but I
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still think that we need to see
more. So I'm curious. I know
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that you said you were inspired
by your family and trying to
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solve a problem there, but you
created this great solution for
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all these entrepreneurs. I'm
curious if there's any
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statistics that you could show
through what you've built on the
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amount of people you've now been
able to help, serve both to
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build their businesses, and
create a better for you
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solution.
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Riana Lynn:: There's several
numbers that I can share. So to
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date, we've helped over 400
companies with formulation, new
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formulations or formulations for
packaged products that are
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either E commerce or in grocery
stores. Some of the small
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percentage of them being also
restaurants and chefs that have
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launched packaged products in
their restaurants or chains, as
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well as a good percentage of
those being ingredient suppliers
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that are supplying novel
ingredients, additives and dyes,
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natural extracted dyes, to these
many companies. We have hundreds
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of thousands of ingredients,
tens of thousands that have been
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audited. To date, over 17,000
skew recommendations for
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improvements. We're now in 18
countries. Just launched in our
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fourth Asian country last over
the past couple of weeks. We
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have saved companies over $12
million in recommendations
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around cost. I could go on and
on with this. Companies range
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from pre revenue with a little
bit of money to spend on some
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new product, but not as much as
you need for a big time
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consultant to multi billion
dollar private label, some of
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the biggest companies in the
world that we've supported in
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innovation.
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Justine Reichman:: So if you
look at that and you say, okay,
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you have everything. From small
to large, right? What percentage
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of those people might not have,
or those organizations might not
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have been able to build out
without a resource like yours
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because of lack of funding, or
lack of resources?
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Riana Lynn:: Yeah. Over 18%. And
we think that number is going to
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grow quite rapidly in the coming
months and years. There was a
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little bit of pull back in 2020
because people were scared about
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fundraising and logistics, but
things have started to shift up.
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Now, there's a little bit of
change in funding, and so
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entrepreneurs are a little
scrappier. They want to spend
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less money and get things to the
market faster. So think now that
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our data is much more efficient,
we've seen a lot more small
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companies come for demos and
prepare to get in our pipeline.
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And we want to continue to lower
the cost to entry for them. So
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the more data we have, the more
we raise money. The more I feel
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comfortable with the access to
the platform, the faster we're
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going to get more small
companies from around the world
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to sign up and scale with us.
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Justine Reichman:: What is the
budget for entry?
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Riana Lynn:: You can enter as
little as $60 a year where you
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just list a couple ingredients
on the platform, and you can get
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a dashboard that helps you
understand what kind of
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companies are trying to buy your
ingredient. That's very basic if
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you're just a supplier. Now, if
you're a CPG company, it starts
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at a few hundreds and goes to
about 2800 a year.
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Justine Reichman:: Wow. But that
sounds a lot less expensive and
297
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a lot more accessible than going
to get a chemist, and trying to
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get your own, and trying to get
everything built with lots of
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minimums, etcetera, to be able
to do this. And time and effort.
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Riana Lynn:: And even if you
want additional services like
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test kitchens and other
pathology reports and things, we
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have a partner network with big
discounts, and we support you
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through that as well. So it's
great to start with us and then
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branch out as you get ready to
launch. But we do monitoring
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over time as well, so you can
monitor for pricing updates, or
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know regulatory changes. Maybe
one of your ingredients is going
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to be banned, or perhaps
consumers are looking for a
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change. And I think it's great
to have that long term analysis
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as you scale the life cycle of
your company or a ptoduct.
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Justine Reichman:: It's amazing
to have those resources and to
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have that information, it's like
you have an on demand news
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release.
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Riana Lynn:: Yeah. On demand
food scientists, that is really
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well read.
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Justine Reichman:: Yeah. That's
amazing. Because I think that
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sometimes, we get our news and
then things happen later. But to
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be able to get that as fresh
news, it allows people to be at
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the forefront and to create
greater change based on what the
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research is saying so early on.
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Riana Lynn:: Yes. And I think
that we're just going to get
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better. Our models are just
going to get better at
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supporting companies here, and
would love to offer discount
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code to your listeners.
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Justine Reichman:: Oh, that
would be amazing. Thank you for
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that.
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Riana Lynn:: Suppliers, or CPG
founders, or managers, they can
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check us out. We have some
really big launches coming up
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this year. I don't know,
assuming it's gonna be a few
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weeks of this launches, but
we're launching packaging AI,
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first company to really have
packaging AI recommendations
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based on everything from dioxins
in your film, right? That could
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be polluting the body too,
things that are more based
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around structure. We're also
launching a large partnership to
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get funding through the
platform. So if you have to
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increase your inventory, or buy
new product, or machinery, we
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support in our testing. We're
testing co-underwriting process
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so that you can get a loan for
that healthy update to your your
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product recipe.
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Justine Reichman:: Amazing.
There's so many resources, and
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I'd love to be able to share
them with the community. Is
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there a list you might be able
to include for us to share with
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the community?
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Riana Lynn:: Just check out
Journey Foods.
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Justine Reichman:: Best if we
send them to your website.
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Riana Lynn:: Yes. Send them to
our website, journeyfoods.io.
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You can follow me and our
Journey Foods newsletter - The
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00:25:10,290 --> 00:25:15,840
Pie for updates. We'll be sure
to share this interview there,
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and follow up with a discount
code as well.
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Justine Reichman:: Awesome. We
will make sure to follow up with
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you so we can throw that in the
show notes for our guests, for
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those guests that are tuning in
today. But Riana, thank you so
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much for joining us today. It's
so exciting to hear what you're
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building and the opportunities
it's going to be able to provide
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for so many people that might
not otherwise have had that
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access to be able to do that.
I'm grateful to have had you on
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as a resource, and as a female
founder. And I look forward to
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meeting you next week at Expo
West when we're both there.
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Riana Lynn:: I look forward to
trying out all the snacks, and
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hopefully seeing you within the
Expo hall. But thank you so
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much, Justine, for your time,
and for the questions, and for
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this platform.
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Justine Reichman:: Awesome.
Thanks so much, Riana, we'll
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talk soon,. I want to thank our
guests and our community that
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tune in each week, whether it's
to be inspired, or to hear a new
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story, or to check out our
resources.
