Food is an emotional and cultural experience. There is no easy way to replace the traditional ingredients that come from animals, but it may no longer be necessary to think about ‘replacing’ them. In this episode, David Bucca, Founder and CEO of Change Foods, joins the show to talk about the company’s game-changing approach to making dairy-free cheese. David also shares the pivotal moment when he decided to leave his aerospace career behind to start this entrepreneurial adventure. Join us in this delicious conversation and be part of this gooey, stretchy and melty revolution!
Before any world-changing innovation, there was a moment, an event, a realization that sparked the idea before it happened. This is a podcast about that moment — about that idea. Before IT Happened takes you on a journey with the innovators who imagined — and are still imagining — our future. Join host Donna Loughlin as her guests tell their stories of how they brought their visions to life.
JUMP STRAIGHT INTO:
(01:32) - From aerospace engineer and pilot to cheese revolutionary - “I've always been very diverse in lots of different interests and wanting to pursue different paths. So it was actually going to be either music or aerospace engineering.”
(04:31) - David’s primary role as an engineer working for Boeing and Airbus - “I spent a year in Hamburg and worked for Airbus, but that was more in flight dynamics. So I was working in a simulator, which was pretty fun because I managed to fly around a little bit and crashed a few times.”
(06:38) - The big bang moment: David’s switch to engineering cheese - “The skillset from aerospace is perfectly suitable to the challenges that we're facing in food technology.”
(14:29) - Why Change Foods is focusing on dairy - “I love the fact that it was still a cell-based technology and that it can recreate bio identical compounds. However, it was also a technology that's been already used for 30 to 40 years in many other food applications.”
(18:43) - Understanding microbes’ role in the cheese production process - “I loved that idea of actually not necessarily stopping beautiful traditions, but rather working with them and just revolutionizing them in a different way.”
(22:53) - From Australia to Silicon Valley - “There's some fantastic innovations and tech that comes out of Australia, but they are typically commercialized in other more substantial markets that you can leverage the resources of.”
(27:57) - Products that Change Foods is currently developing - “The revolutionary thing is that we haven't actually eaten it yet. We have smelled it and played around with it, but until it's produced in a food grade facility, that's when we'll actually be able to eat it.”
EPISODE RESOURCES:
Connect with David on Linkedin, Twitter and Instagram
Learn more about Change Foods
Read Bloomberg’s Cow-Free Cheese Startup’s ‘Holy Grail’ Quest Wins Big Backers
Read Green Queen’s Animal-Free Dairy Startup Change Foods Closes Record $12 Million Seed Extension To Disrupt Cheese
Listen to Before IT Happened’s: Taking On the $100 Billion Pet Food Industry with Because Animals'
Listen to Before IT Happened’s: Sprouting our way to Better Health and Sustainability with Doug Evans
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Before IT Happened is produced by Donna Loughlin and StudioPod Media with additional editing and sound design by nodalab. The Executive Producer is Katie Sunku Wood and all episodes are written by Jack Buehrer.
