Terviva is focused on providing food that is good for the consumer, the environment, and the communities it comes from. They do just that with their Ponova products made from the fruit of the pongamia tree – a regenerative crop that improves soil health and supports biodiversity. We talked to their Chief Technology Officer, Jim Astwood, to learn more.
Joey Thurman: TerViva is a food and agriculture company that uses the beans from the pongamia tree to create a plant-based food source that's not only good for the consumer, but also good for the earth. Joining us today is chief technology officer Jim Astwood.
Jim Astwood: Great to be here. Thank you for having me.
Joey Thurman: I like your background. That's nice. What is that?
Jim Astwood: Those are pongamia trees in an orchard in Florida.
Joey Thurman: Okay. Now pongamia beans, it's an interesting ingredient. I really haven't heard much about it. It's unique and we don't see a lot about that in the plant-based industry. So what is it about this particular crop that made your company want to use it?
Jim Astwood: Absolutely great question. Pongamia trees are endemic to Southeast Asia and when our founders created the company, they set out to identify agricultural systems that both connect with communities in a very positive way, as well as bring environmental benefits and mitigate really the global warming challenges that we face and work with a crop that really brings regenerative agriculture to life. It's been around for many thousands of years, and it appears in [inaudible 00:01:09] texts because of its presence in Indian subculture and culture. And it's not been a food ingredient up until quite recently, it's been used for other things like cosmetic applications or cooking to light fires and that type of thing, or for biofuels. And what we've done is we've created edible ingredients from the beans, from this tree, that you can see in the background.
Joey Thurman: It's amazing what TerViva is doing for the communities around the world throughout the process. Tell me more about what you're doing to revitalize communities.
Jim Astwood: Great question. So we're working in two areas principally right now. One is in the United States where in Florida, where this tree is very well adapted, and those are Florida trees behind me. You may be aware that in the citrus industry, they're suffering from disease called greening disease that has wiped out more or less about half of the acres of what we all come to understand to be the defining future of Florida, which is Florida citrus. And so pongamia trees are very attractive to former citrus growers in Florida as a replacement, it's very robust. It provides great economic returns and it brings obvious carbon benefits from the fact that it's a tree crop. So Florida and our Florida grower community is extremely excited about and important to us. At the same time, we're in India where these beans are traditionally collected in local communities as a type of forest agriculture, where other kinds of products are also collected from the harvest. It's called a wild harvest, and we're working with communities there to identify pongamia trees and beans. And we believe there's approximately 2 million tons of these beans available already within India alone. And so we're working with hundreds of different communities throughout India to essentially bring these harvests to us from which we'll make our protein, our oil and our flower ingredients. And then in turn, bring significant economic benefits to those communities.
Joey Thurman: Yeah, that's great that you're not only helping local farmers around the world, with your website and beautifully done video by the way on there. And what other specific products are these beans going to go into? I know that you mentioned they were being used for a wide range of products, but what type of food products are you guys going to create?
Jim Astwood: Fantastic question. Well, the bean, it's related long distance at least, to soybeans and peanuts and peas. So it's a high oil containing bean. It's about 40% oil, and this is a middle oleic oil, think sunflower oils, those types of oils. So it's a healthy oil and we've been able to create through our technology, a very delicious oil that we know the food industry in North America first is very excited about. So, that's an oil product. At the same time we have a flour and a protein ingredient. The protein ingredient is a pretty interesting ingredient. It compares favorably to soy and pea, it has characteristics that actually set it apart. It's very low in flavor. It's got great nutritionals. And as a protein source, it creates a whole new set of opportunities for both the food industry and of course, the communities that benefit from harvesting and selling the beans themselves.
Joey Thurman: What can you tell us about TerViva's plans moving forward?
Jim Astwood: Well, we essentially have two main operations, as you might imagine. One is this work that we're doing with the communities in India to harvest beans. And at the same time, we're currently scaling our manufacturing processes here in the United States. And in Mexico, we have a pilot plant in Mexico where we produce flour, protein and the oil. And we're currently building our first facility in the United States to start achieving enough scale where it's interesting to both the trade as well as really creating economic benefits for our partners, both the growers in Florida, as well as our partners in India.
Joey Thurman: You guys are really going worldwide here. Now you're going to be at future food tech alternative protein summit in New York this coming June.
Jim Astwood: Correct.
Joey Thurman: What can attendees expect to see from you there?
Jim Astwood: Well, our CEO and several others of us will be there meeting with colleagues and sharing our story. It's going to be a very exciting meeting for us because we're making such significant progress that by early this summer, we expect to be actually selling that first ingredient, that oil ingredient at obviously modest scale, but it will be fully commercialized this summer. And so that next future food tech meeting is obviously part of our journey towards the product lunch.
Joey Thurman: Well, thank you for so much for joining us today Jim, and make sure to connect with TerViva at future food techs alternative protein summit in New York, this summer, June 21st and 22nd.
Jim Astwood: See you there.