Future-Proofing Business: CFO Strategies for AI, Risk & Growth w/ Tony Hunter

0:00 We are like, ladies and gentlemen, you want again welcome to the Kingdom's podcast. And today I've got with me a very, very important guest fighting out of Brisbane, Australia. Mick. Welcome, Tony. The future is Haunter. How are you today, Tony? Good, Adamola, how are you? Very well, thank you.

0:27 Very well, thank you. And of course, you know, I very much appreciate having you on the podcast today. There's something I always say that when a person shares their time with you, they're sharing their life with you because the SI unit for measuring life is time. So thank you once again for sharing your life and your time with us today. And of course, you need to sit back while we read your flowers to you.

0:50 So, Champions, today's conversation is not about food, it's about the future of survival. Meets Tony Hunter, Global food futurist, strategic foresight advisor. A man who has spent over 3 decades at the intersection of food, technology and innovation, Tony does not just study trends, he translates exponential change into strategic decisions that determine whether businesses survive or disappear. From advising global giants like PepsiCo and KFC to shaping boardroom conversations on the future of food systems, Tony's work to lend his leaders to stop reaching, reacting and start designing the future as philosophy is simple but powerful.

1:39 If you do not know where you're leading, any future will take you there. This episode is a master class in mindset, strategy, and technology reshaping that the world eats. Tony, you once again. Welcome to the Kingdom's podcast. Wow, wow. It's a great well, it's a pleasure to be here. Thank you very much.

2:03 We're gradually Teddy to a futurist podcast. We had the number one futurist on the podcast a few days ago. And of course, we have a number 2 and award on the podcast. And of course, shout out to your colleague Ronnie William #20 on the podcast as well. So we are gradually becoming our futurist. And of course, we also had Steve Brown, I think about two weeks ago.

2:32 The Brown is the ex chief futurist for Google DeepMind and Intel. So I guess we need to start a rebranded It's a it's a futurist podcast. Well, but you know, Tony, your journey actually spans science, operations and global strategy. What moment forced you to stop thinking like an operator and start thinking like a futurist?

2:59 Look, I think that moment for me, Ademola, was back in 2017. I mean, I started my consulting work 10 years before that. And prior to that, as you say, I was in operations general manager of two food companies. And right about 2017, I started to see things in my newsletters that I hadn't seen before.

3:17 And we all get into industry newsletters. So I'm reading my industry newsletters. So I'm going like, wow, I didn't know you could do that. I didn't know that technology even existed. And look at that consumer trend. Look how fast that's going. And, you know, I sat back and I went, I have never seen in all my 30 odd years in the food industry a rate of change like I was seeing in 2017. So, you know, I'm kind of like, wow, all this stuff's going on. So I go and talk to my executive friends, my clients and colleagues saying how do you keep up with all of this information that's coming up?

3:56 And the usual reply was I can't, I've got problems to solve. People recruit meetings to go to, strategies to prepare. Tony, you want me to think 5/10/20 years into the future, not going to happen. So then I thought to myself, well, someone needs to do this. And to use my wife's most hated phrase, how hard can it be? So I, I decided that I would be the one who would look at all these technologies, look at what was going on and communicate them as part of my consulting business. And then of course, when I'm consulting, I'm only dealing with maybe what, half a dozen people or in an organization. So the spread that I was getting the, the amount of people I could reach was fairly small.

4:46 That's when I became a professional. Speaker. World speaking professional, Yep, speaking on on the the future of food. But that was when things changed for me was about mid 2017. And that realizing how difficult it is for executives to do their day job to include looking at cutting edge technologies across a wide spectrum and project that 5/10/20 years into the future, very, very difficult. Extremely difficult.

5:20 And you know, speaking from the lens, from the viewpoint of the millennial, right? So as a millennial, I always feel that I am in a sweet spot. I'm not too old and I'm not too young, right? And I've been privileged to see the evolution of technology over time, right? I was alive when we were using the, the cassettes, right, the CDs, the BCDS, the tapes, you know, we saw the, the BlackBerry, we saw, you know, Chelsea shut it into the Android phones and you know, the, the iPhones, you know, from iPhone 1 down to iPhone 17. It's, it's, it's really amazing what, what, what is happening, you know, seeing blockchain technology, looking at cloud computing, quantum computing.

6:14 Now we're in the age of the LLMS, who knows what is coming next? We just don't know. And you just have to keep keeping up, right? But you know, you often say that leadership is about foresight, right? But what did you have to unlearn to develop that level of clarity, even in the fast-paced world of technology? Look, I think at all when we're in a business, we look out into the world and we think that we see like, oh, a good 180° I can, I have this wide view of the world. And if you leave that company or particularly if you leave that industry, you find that no, that's how wide your view was. So what I had to sort of unlearn or develop was that ability to have a very, very wide view of

7:09 food, a very, very wide view of the future, not just any particular segment or industry, but to look at technologies that lie on the fringe, technologies that aren't necessarily in the food industry at all. I mean, you look at some of the technologies like cultivated meat that came from the medical industry. You look at something like precision fermentation comes from pharmaceuticals.

7:37 So those industries didn't directly interface with food, but they do now. And we're seeing other technologies as well coming up at the cutting edge of various industries that are having or will have a major impact on food. Wow. I, I think having a bit of a background in science, I'm quite curious about the fermentation side of things.

8:04 Would you give us a brief story about how it came about? Because, you know, it's interesting how some of the world's greatest inventions actually come from unintended consequences. So, for example, the person who invented silk did not go about thinking they wanted to invent silk, it just happened. So I'd like for you to give us a brief story about how about the fermentation process.

8:34 Yeah. Well, I think if you look at what we're calling precision fermentation now, precision fermentation is where you take the gene for something you want to make. You put it into an Organism. It could be a yeast, a bacteria, a mold, something like that. And then you get that Organism to produce the compound that you want. And that's been very common in the Pharmaceutical industry for decades.

8:58 One of those factories costs about 2 billion U.S. dollars to to build and Commission. So they're not cheap. And we use that for say, particularly for for medicines. And that industry is fine-tuned for absolutely pure high grade materials because you're injecting it into your body. Now for food, you don't need that degree of purity because as long as the impurities are inert, they don't do anything, then you can then make that product far more cost effectively. And we've seen particularly 2 products on the the forefront of this precision fermentation. 1 is whey protein because as we know whey protein for is a byproduct of cheese making and it's in so many products.

9:47 It's everything from protein shakes to protein bars to all sorts of things of fortified use in whey protein and the whey protein demand is doing that. So a company called Perfect Day, they put the gene for casein into a yeast and they use that to make whey protein. Another company called the, they were called the every company at the time and they put the gene for egg protein, egg white albumin into an Organism and they grow egg white products. So that's using a technology richly in for pharmaceuticals to make food products.

10:25 Wow, amazing, amazing. So for all of the gene bodies, listen to these. Now you know how your whey protein is that's been created. I used to be on whip it is it. I hope it is fine because I used to be on whip protein for some time. So let's contemplate whether we're going back to whip protein or not, or whether we're just sticking to eggs. So you know, you, you actually work with a lot of leaders, right?

11:03 And a lot of them to see the least are overwhelmed by the rapid change that is happening. Oh yes, in this Asian time. So what separates those who adapt from those who disappear? I think those that get help because it's one thing knowing I can't keep up and then you have a decision. I'm just going to ignore this stuff and hope it doesn't affect me and hope it goes away or acknowledge that you have a gap and you find you get help to fill that gap like you would do with I suppose anything in in business where you have gaps need to fill that gap. The thing with looking at long term strategies, what we call foresight is it is long term, you know, Wall Street quarterly results, you can do something.

11:59 You'll see the results at the end of the quarter went up, went down. You know the result. With foresight, you're making decisions that will have impacts in five and 10 years time. And the 10 year of most CEOs is what, 5, maybe 10 years at the most, some longer term. But most people, so most CEOs are not likely to see the results of their work in foresight during the tenure of their organization. That's where it's the responsibility of boards who are responsible for the long term health and welfare of the company to step in and say we want you as CEO to have a 510 or 20 year view of the future, even though you might not be here to see it.

12:48 Wow. Amazing. So that speaks to corporate governance, right? And I appreciate you talking about the importance of corporate governance, but I'd like for you to shed more light on this because a lot of the experts do not, would I say, give it the attention that it deserves. But it is something that is very, very important.

13:15 So I'd like for you to speak to the importance of corporate governance, right, for organizations and of course for the, the, the progress that is needed in, you know, this current times, we have, you know, a, the proliferation of AI, for example, proliferation of new technologies, right? But corporate governance, how important is it for organizations to stay adaptable and to stay future proof?

13:49 I mean, I think if you don't have resilience as an organization in this day and age, you're doomed to failure because we know how fast things can change. We know how disruptive technologies can be if they're not addressed and they're not taken into account. So that ability to be resilient and at board level, setting the tone for the senior management in terms of resilience and in terms of that resilience being the ability to react to unforeseen circumstances in the future or even better, to be prepared for a set of unseen circumstances, or not unseen, but ones that you're not sure of.

14:30 We call them alternative futures. So some people think that, oh, you know, if you're a good futurist, you predict the future. Now, futurists don't predict the future. They ensure that you're prepared for the future, whatever it turns out to be. So you look at the future and go, given all these technologies, here's maybe 3 different ways those technologies could go.

14:55 And as an organization, you then say, OK, what do I have to do differently for each of those 3 scenarios? Now you don't put together a 200 page plan for it, but you acknowledge that if this future happens, my core is still OK, but I'm going to need these three technologies for that future. This one happens, cores are OK, but I need 3 different technologies for this future and so on. So that you're prepared to be resilient and you can react in good time when the future actually eventuates. So I think that governance point of view, taking that long term view of the future, because what we're finding at the moment, and I talked to a lot of organizations and they're like, Oh no, we, we haven't got time

15:42 to think about the future. We've got the affordability crisis, we've got Hormuz, we've got this with that. That's fine. But you need to be able to make decisions today with the long term future in mind. As I say, the reason we explore the future is to make the best possible decisions today. Because if we know what the future could be, we can look back to today and say, well, OK, if the future is going to be one of these, what today is going to be leading us in the right direction?

16:16 Because you can make short term decisions that take you in that direction. If future turns out to be in that direction, you just wasted a lot of time, effort and resources. So even though the temptation might be no, no, no, I just need to worry about this quarter and next quarter, then I'll think about the future.

16:33 But if the short term decisions are taking you in the wrong direction, you're wasting a lot of time and effort. And sometimes you have found grown on the wrong Rd. But, you know, Speaking of the future, let's talk about the future of food. You describe food as technology. Are you able to break that down? What does that really mean for business leaders today? Well.

16:59 I mean, if you think about food from farm to fork, it's full of technology. You look at farming, we have drones on farms. We have robot tractors, we have precision wedding. We have weeders, robot weeders that use lasers to destroy weeds. So technologies everywhere on farms. If we look to the manufacturing side itself, we have what we've talked about, precision fermentation, cultivated meat.

17:28 We have AI coming into product development. And then you go to the consumers. Consumers, there's technology in their food. They have their smart rings, smart watches, turn them about their health and nutrition and guiding them and guiding them in what they should do and how they should eat. So food and technology, they're just intertwined.

17:53 You cannot separate food from technology. So I'd say food really is technology. They're one and the same. I mean, we used to be food used to be a sleepy technological backwater compared to the electronics industry, but that's not the case anymore. There's as much technology goes into food manufacture as that goes into any of the electronics technology around today.

18:18 Yeah, with a lot of organic chemistry at the at the highest level happening right now. I love, I love the concept of the fermentation. Wow. So what are the top three technologies that will redefine the global food system over the next decade? I think the, if we look at it, looking at cellular agriculture, which is not just cultivated meat, but what we're seeing today in the chocolate's a great example.

18:50 If you've seen the price of chocolate, chocolate keeps going up because we've got diseases, low yields, labor problems, all sorts of things happening to the cacao industry. So we chocolate ingredients are more and more expensive, actually take the cells from the cacao plant, put them into giant stainless steel reactors and make chocolate ingredients.

19:15 So cellular agriculture can be used for plant products as well as animal products. I think cellular agriculture has got an amazing future. Then as we talked about what's called in general synthetic biology, which includes precision fermentation, that is going to have a major effect. And the last one, of course is AAI, which is an accelerator to the other two. So it means that you can accelerate the pace with which you can develop your cellular agriculture products and your precision for fermentation products. And those three technologies I really believe are going to drive massively the future of food. Now, I'm not saying in any way that conventional crop agriculture and animal agriculture will disappear. Not saying that at all, they're

20:04 going to be around for a long, long time, if not forever, but just that these technologies are going to be the most influential on where we see the future of food go in the coming decades. Amazing. So alternative proteins, AI and sustainability are major trends. Which one is the most misunderstood and why? I think, you know, sustainability possibly is misunderstood because when we think about sustainability, we think, oh, it's sustainable, that's great, but sustainability is keeping the status quo.

20:48 What we should be looking more at is regenerative agriculture, so that we're getting the outcomes we want in terms of biodiversity, soil health, less inputs like fertilizers. I mean, we're seeing, again, with the current crisis in the Middle East, the supply of urea is starting to dry up. So we've got less and less fertilizers that we can use to grow our crops. So I think that if we get that regenerative side of things, then that is going to help insulate part of the food supply from shocks like we're seeing now. And there's even technology in that. There's a company called Pivot Bio. They have a soil microbiome that they've developed. They can either spray it on the ground or on the seeds before they're planted and it reduces

21:37 nitrogen usage by about 40 kilos per hectare, which is a lot when you're doing millions of hectares. That's a lot of fertilizer you don't need. So you don't get the runoff, you don't get the problems, you don't have to buy as much fertilizer. Very, very cost effective. So those sorts of technologies are also in the mix. Again, another example of technology and farming. Wow.

22:04 So, so you talked about how the crisis in the Middle East is affecting the global supply chain for food briefly, right? I'll love for you to expand on that, right. But also you talked about a component, a chemical compound that is your beer, which is very would I say, a stable component of fertilizers, right? Also, it's one of the most.

22:33 Commonly used fertilizers. Yes, that that I know. At least, you know, I do have a science background and thinking about it, like correct me if I'm wrong is, is it not possible to produce urea from what I say synthetic chemical reactions? Is is it possible to to to do that? Yeah, a lot of. Nitrogen is produced by what's called the Harvard Bosch process and they use a lot of LNG, which is one of the problems that a lot of liquid nitrogen produced in the in the Middle East is not getting through.

23:12 So we can't make our our, our fertilizers. And this is one of the things that we're seeing. If we go back to COVID, we've had the shock of COVID disrupting supply chains. Russia, Ukraine war disrupting supply chains, now Strait of Hormuz disrupting supply chains. As I've been saying for years, this idea of growing stuff or making raw materials on one side of the world and shipping it to the other side of the world is not necessarily the good idea we once thought it was. And Hormuz is not the only choke point. The Panama Canal, the Suez Canal, the Straits of Malacca, those are all global checkpoints. If one of those goes down, then we have similar problems to what we're seeing now or, or possibly

24:02 even worse. So countries now need to look at the difference between food security and food sovereignty. Now, Singapore, for example, exports about 90, not 95% of all its food. But they're quite food secure, right? They can buy whatever food they like. They're a rich country until either A, you just can't get it or B, people won't sell it to you. Malaysia stopped selling chicken to Singapore like that at one stage because of their domestic chicken market problems. So they couldn't get it because they weren't food sovereign. So they didn't make enough food in their own country. Even though their food's secure, they weren't food sovereign. And I think we're going to see a lot more returning to the days of, well, OK, even though it's

24:51 cheaper to make it 10,000 kilometres away and ship it in, maybe we're best to make it in our country so that we are food sovereign. So if anything happens and the supplies cut off, we can still at least grow a base amount of food for our country rather than being at the mercy of someone else. And I mean, as as we know, food's been a weapon of war for 10s of thousands of years.

25:19 That's what sieges were all about, right? Starve people out. And you get your desired alcohol. Yep, Yep. And I mean the rules based order is now dead as everyone says. So you really have to start looking at where do you need sovereignty and some of these new technologies can you can make food without arable land or virtually any freshwater.

25:47 There's a company called Solar Foods based out of Finland. They make food from air. They suck air in through their machine. They separate out the water, carbon dioxide and nitrogen. They split the water into hydrogen and oxygen, hence using solar energy, hence solar foods. They mix some microbes, a few minerals, they process the nitrogen and they grow food from air comes from NASA technology of the 60s. How do we feed astronauts?

26:18 And they're now commercializing their second factory and that product will go mainstream in the next decade. And so therefore, in countries in Africa, in particular sub-Saharan Africa and other places where you don't have arable land or fresh water, a lot of it, you can still make food. And the beauty is it needs solar energy. Guess where the most solar energy is on the planet? Sub-Saharan Africa.

26:43 Africa. Africa. That's the equator. That's the technologies. Yep, exactly. So those technologies, that's why some of these technologies are so good for food sovereignty, because you don't have to try and create or you don't have to have large amounts of arable land and freshwater. Well, I, I, I love the fact that you, you, you touched on sub-Saharan Africa. I'm originally from Nigeria.

27:10 And of course that is, that is the hotbed of sub-saharan of Africa. And you know, for me, it's crazy to think about the fact that we are blessed with the, would I say, solar energy, like it is literally free in that part of the world, right? But one thing we've always struggled with is when I say government policies and of course execution by the government.

27:36 So if you were advising a government today, what would be the first move for them to seek your food for the next 50 years? Look, I think The thing is, Adam Alla is which government are we talking the government of Nigeria or the government of the US to conquire different ends of the spectrum? What I'd like to concentrate on is the countries at the Nigeria end of the spectrum up and coming emerging companies with huge opportunities and population and everything else and say to them, look, you know, if we look, I look at Kenya back in 2002, right, they needed to dramatically improve their telecommunications. So what did they do?

28:21 Did they go? I know we'll let's have a, we have a cabinet meeting. I know, let's buy 100,000 trenching machines, 2,000,000 kilometres of copper wire, set up a local handset manufacturing industry, and in 100 years we'll catch up with the rest of the world. No, they got cell technology in, they gave people cheap handsets and they leapfrogged. Literally 100 years of telecommunications technology in a decade.

28:53 So why can't countries like that look at food in the same way? Why do I have to import millions of tons of fertilizer, grow all these cows, do all this stuff to have a food industry? Why don't I look at the latest technologies and say, how do I use those to leapfrog where I am now to where I want to be?

29:19 And again, taking into account that sovereignty is so important and the importing fertilizers and other resources is probably not a good idea. And if we look at Nigeria by just after the early 20 fifties, it will have more people, a higher population than the US. So it will not have the same GDP maybe, but will have more population, a much younger population and probably on a much faster trajectory than than than the US. So why don't they take advantage of the latest cutting edge technologies rather than going, what did they do in the US? What did they do in the UK?

30:00 What did they do in Australia? Let's just follow them. If Kenya had done that, they'd still be talking on handsets and trying to, you know, connect through the operator. I mean, that doesn't make any sense. So why can't they leapfrog some of these into some of these new technologies? That's what I'd be saying to those, to those governments, to the other governments, the more advanced governments, I I'd be saying, you know, look at where you are and what you can make sustainably.

30:32 Because there's a gap between what we can make sustainably and what we're going to need to feed a global population in 2050. And what we don't want is to disrupt the current global food system. We've seen what disruption does to the food system. The last thing we need is disruption like short sharp shocks.

30:55 We don't need those. So what we need to do is look at how we optimize and make sustainable our current food system and on top of that, other technologies so that we can fill that gap between what we can make sustainably and what we're going to need by 2050 and beyond. Amazing, amazing. And of course, you have your proprietary framework. It very much aligns with the philosophy of this forecast because the main philosophy of this forecast is mindset, skill set, tool set.

31:29 And of course, you have provided the tool set, right? So you have the framework called the Future Cubed, which is trademarked, right? So are you able to what I say, give us a brief expose on what the future cubed framework is about? Yeah. Well, look, I mean, just to go back once to Adamola, the the reason I developed that was some people look at trying to do foresight, trying to look at the future and it's just all too hard and all too complicated. So I thought, what's something that is nice and easy and simple to follow.

32:10 So obviously the future cubes about the future and the cubed. CUBED is the process that you follow. So first of all, you challenge your thinking. We've talked before about taking a much wider view of what's going on, challenging things. The old, we've always done it this way or this is the way things happen, or that's the only way it can happen. So look at these new technologies, some of which we've talked about, and challenge your thinking with it. What could that mean?

32:38 And then we call these cutting edge things that we see signals of change. They're a signal that things are changing. They're not going to be the same as they were. And we need to then understand that's the Ewing cube, understand these signals and what they could mean. And then we need to from that we then go to be prepared. So what we do is we say given all these things that we've seen, let's prepare what we talked about before and Amola, which is those alternative futures. So we can see the future could happen in maybe 2-3 or four ways.

33:16 Let's develop an understanding at least on a surface level of each of those futures. So then we can have a be able to be resilient no matter what future comes to pass. We might not pick it exactly even with the three, but if we do have work properly, it'll be very close to let's say one of those three that we had. Then we need to do a bit of an evaluation. We need to dive a little bit deeper and go, well, OK, what do each of those futures mean for our organization? Does it mean that we need far more CapEx? Does it mean that we need much better human resources in R&D? Does it mean we did much better marketing department? What do each of these futures mean to us? And then the final one, the D in

34:02 future cubed is decisive action because I'm not one of these futurists that goes, here's a blue sky view, flying cars, robot dogs, this, that, and the other, it's like, no, no, no, I've been in business. It needs to be something that's useful. And then at some point you need to take action. You can't just do all this work and then say, oh, that was interesting.

34:23 You've got to go. We need to take action. And if you've done the work properly, you will take action maybe 12 months before your competitors even realize what's going on. You've maybe already started building that factory 12 months ago, so they're 12 months behind. Maybe you've recruited the best people in the world in that area of research or product development or whatever, and you've deprived the other companies of that expertise. So that's the advantage of that, being prepared for what's going to happen.

34:55 And that's what the future Q process does. It's a very simple process that people can follow to be prepared for the future. Well, amazing framework and of course I love the level of detail and insight that you provided into the framework, but where the companies actually feel right in applying this foresight strategy.

35:23 I think they again they concentrate too much on the short term and they don't pay enough attention to the long term that it something that goes on the shelf that's interesting that's for five or ten years time rather than saying no. This is an integral part of our strategy that must be considered at every board meeting, at every quarterly or six months, whatever strategy meeting, this needs to be embedded in what we do. This the process of looking to the future to as a check against what we're doing today.

35:58 Does it match if we think the future is in that direction and this short term decision is going to take us in that direction, is that still the right thing to do? So not using that and continuing to use that knowledge. On a. Continuous basis. So how about you know SMEs, that is small, medium, you know skilled enterprises, founders without a project.

36:26 So how can you know small businesses use the framework without affording a big consulting project? Well, I mean, I, I suppose the easiest way is go to my website, there's a few, there's an outline of the future Q process. And I think there is no downside no matter how you approach that foresight strategy. Even just having a view, looking at my process and following it yourself is way, way better than doing nothing. If you can look at that and say to yourself, I'm going to do this every week.

37:05 I'm going to look at what's going on. I'm going to spend 2 hours investigating the future, challenging my thinking, and then thinking about what that means for my organization. Just that change in mindset without spending a lot of money on going through the whole process in great depth and detail.

37:22 Doing that changes your mindset because a future cube is a process, but it's also a mindset. It's a way of looking at the future. That means that you're far less likely to be ambushed as circumstances change. Oh. That is brilliant. So please what is the website so we can have it in the description below?

37:44 It is futurist4food.com and the four is FAOR so futurist FAOR food.com and you'll find that there one of the drop downs will take you to my process. OK. And if you want to follow me. On link link LinkedIn as well also. I also feature that on my LinkedIn as well and on the my website there's also blogs frequently on the future Q process and things like that.

38:13 OK, yes, we will have your LinkedIn as well, you know, in in the description for for the forecast. So wherever you get your forecast guys look at the description and of course you can connect with Tony Hunter on LinkedIn. You can link up with him on LinkedIn. So for for for the founders listening to us today, right? What's that?

38:39 One simple foresight habits that every founder, every CEO should start doing this week. I think, look, just develop a deep sense of curiosity about the outside world and what's going on outside your own field. I mean, that exposure to new ideas and new ways of doing things, I think there's no substitute for doing that because we're all tempted as senior executives to focus so much on our own business, so much of what's going on. And particularly if you've been in the industry a long, long time, which can be quite an advantage sometimes. But at the downside is that you're only looking at it through that same lens that you've looked at it for the last 5-10, maybe even 20 years.

39:29 Oh wow. Amazing. And you know, something just came up on my mind. I have been privileged to speak with some of the world's top futurists, right? And one word that all of you keep saying is curiosity, right? I have never spoken to a single futurist who hasn't used that word. Curiosity. What's up with being curious, right? Yeah.

40:01 And, and I mean, it's one of those things I I read a newsletter and it's amazing. You read a newsletter and you see something. Then you follow that one and you follow that one and you follow that and you go down the rabbit hole and you discover things, but you. Never even. Imagined, I mean the one of my favourite technologies at the moment again, which is at the outside edge of food, but I can see how it could be applied to food, even though no one's mention it to my knowledge is a company called Koniku. What they've done is they've put mouse neurons onto a computer chip and it can smell better than a dog's nose and it can be used for detecting landmines, detecting explosives at airports.

40:47 But imagine if you use that sense of smell to smell food products and then correlated that to what the consumer wants in a smell of a product. You and then use AI to then generate A formulation that will give you that flavour, that smell profile that you want. So that could be really, really useful to digitize food smells. Amazing stuff.

41:17 You just never know what you're able to create in the age of AI. But you know, like talking. Absolutely. The the the global impact and the system of thinking. Now we are heading towards a global population of 10 billion people. That is insane. That is scary, right? So with the world heading towards feeding 10 billion people, we need as much innovation as we can get. But what are we getting wrong today? Look, let me just go back a second. I say that we're going to have 11 billion or more mouths to feed, not ten.

42:02 Because besides. 9 points. Besides 9.7 billion humans, there will be about 1.3 billion or more pet cats and dogs also needing to be fed. They can eat as much protein as a human. So we have over 11 billion mouths to feed, not just the human population by 2050. So that's the challenge. And if we look at the coming generations, pets are becoming more and more important, more and more part of the family, and they want to be fed well, I've been looked after. And so the challenge is going to be feeding these increasing number of pets as well as humans. Wow, interesting.

42:48 I know, I know we've touched on this before, but I would like for you to expand on this right now. Like how does geopolitics and the global supply chains, right? How does it shape the future of food security? You know, given what we've seen recently with the Suez Canal, with the Strait of Hormuz, like how does geopolitics and you know, would I say clumsy chances in the global supply chain system, right? How does it shape the future of Food Security I? Think what it means is that as a country, you have to realize I cannot rely 100% on any country.

43:35 And for a variety of reasons, I just can't do that. So how do I look at the supply chain and that same word we used before, Ademola resilience. OK, if I can't get it from here, can I get it from there? If I can't get it from there, can I make it locally? What should I be making locally? What should I be doing to make sure that I have that sovereignty over my food supply? Because if I can't feed my population, that's the end of the story, isn't it?

44:05 In the end, that's it. So you have to be able to feed your population. And one of that's one of the government's prime responsibilities is to ensure that their population are fed, yes, National Defence and all these sorts of things, but there's no good defending a population that's starving to death.

44:23 So you have to be able to feed your population. So whatever you can do to ensure that is something valuable, it becomes a matter of national security. Is resilience and certainty sovereignty over your food supply? Wow. So what role will emerging markets like the countries in Africa play in the future of the food economy, the global food economy? Yeah.

44:56 I think again, it harks back to what we were talking about before is that if they can adopt these new technologies and adopt them fast enough, then they become hotbeds of innovation and hotbeds of new technologies, new products, And that could give them a competitive advantage. Because as we know, generally you look at new technologies, they start off expensive and then they drop right in price. So if these countries can get in and scale some of these technologies, then they actually find that they have a competitive advantage against some conventionally manufactured products, and that then goes back to their own food supply and makes more affordable for them to supply their own population.

45:41 So I think there's a huge opportunity for these countries, particularly in Africa, but in parts of Southeast Asia and India as well, to really adopt these new technologies to secure the future of the food supply for their populations. So if the current global system collapses, what does the next version look like? Well, as I say, I hope it never collapses as such. Well, I, I hope that changes are, are manageable. The rate of change is manageable because if it were to collapse, mass starvation would be it.

46:23 I mean, if suddenly, not just the Strait of Hormuz, but Suez was closed, Michael was closed, and we had two or three of these choke points around the world closed, that would be disastrous. We would see starvation on a level, an unimaginable level we haven't seen for centuries. So I think that would be absolutely terrible.

46:43 What I think is that we need to look at a rebalancing of our technologies and our food supply system to ensure it's at least sustainable, if not regenerative, and that we look at these technologies as a ways of filling that gap that we know we're going to have between what we grow sustainably within planetary boundaries and what we're going to need.

47:07 So that's going to be, I think, the big, big effect. Oh. Interesting take. You know, let's talk about AI and leadership because AI is at the heart of what we do with this podcast. So you often times talk about exponential change. And of course anybody who understands AI understands that AI and exponential change are their siblings.

47:35 But why do leaders consistently underestimate the the power of AI and the the exponential change it can create? Because I think that seems to create that exponential gap. Yep, I think there's, I forget who it was, but someone said the greatest failing of the human race is the inability to understand the exponential function.

48:00 And because what it is is we humans, we're linear creatures, right? An hour is an hour, a day is a day, a week is a week. A week doesn't pass quicker next year than it did this year. It's still a week when you're on holidays. It might seem to pass quicker, but it doesn't really still the same. Week as it was when you're at work.

48:19 It just seems sure, right? So that's the thing. Humans are linear technology, particularly things like AI, and most often are exponential. They're not linear and we have trouble wrapping a human linear minds around an exponential function. I think that is why leaders have trouble grasping it. And the other side of things is what they so often see is the exponential curve, as we know is very, very shallow at it start. It looks like a straight line, right? So if you're, if you're a leader and you look at those points and you put your ruler across them, you can look, that looks like a pretty nice straight line to me.

49:04 It's not. It's a very shallow curve. And if you don't act, the gap between the straight line and the exponential curve starts widening in enormously. So people often they overestimate how quickly things will happen. So it'll all change in a year? No, it took 510 or 20 years. But when it did change, they underestimate the impact it will have.

49:33 So you know, that is one of the problems that our our people board members seem second son have is they thinking linearly. It's very hard not to think linearly to immerse yourself in exponential change. And then when you look at it, it seems to be linear anyway at 1st until it takes off. And then you find out how far behind you really are.

49:55 Because if you're running your business on a linear mode and the real change is that you end up with a huge gap and either you never catch up and you disappear, or you have to pump enormous resources into catching up, that's your only two choices. Interesting. Let's say, OK, assuming time is not linear, they say time flies fast when you're having fun. Yeah, time all these slides fast where you have a fun. But what might have shift?

50:33 Most leaders might try to to stay relevant in an AI driven world. What's the mindset shift that is required? I think the mindset shift is that AI is for use everywhere in the organization, including at their own level. AI is not something you delegate to the guys in IT and then say good, we've got this AI thing done, the guys in IT are looking after it.

51:04 In Australian parlance, she'll be right mate, Don't worry, it has got it. We'll just keep doing the way we've always done things in the boardroom at the CEO level. No. If you're not embedding AI at your own level in the things that you do, then how do you expect the rest of the organization to respond?

51:24 How do you expect them to embed AI in what they do and take the advantages of it if you're not doing it yourself? It really is a case of leading by example and looking at how you can optimize use of AI in your own department and in your own job. So if you're not doing that, then basically no, you're never going to convince the rest of the organization that it truly is important.

51:53 Just and take. So Speaking of AI in your own department. Let's talk. About AI in the end to end, when I say food process from farm to funk. So how will AI reshape the food industry from farm to funk? Well. I, I think the, the biggest impact is probably going to be in the manufacturing side of things, which will feedback into what they want from farms, feed into the supermarkets and, and consumers. And that is its impact on product development and R&D. So if we look at if you're a food technologist and someone says I want you to make a new food product, you can, you might have twenty ingredients and you've got to get the best combination of five of those to make your food product the tastiest it can be.

52:47 What's your chance of choosing the right five products that are going to be absolutely the best? You got to go down the 20 and get get rid of that one. Get rid of that one. That one's good, that one's good and you'll come up. If you're a good food technologist, you undoubtedly come up with a good product. Now, if you're using AI, you can say it says 20 products. How about you give me 20,000 and I'll give you the best combinations.

53:12 And it can come up with an enormous number combinations and ways of doing things that we as humans have never even thought of. And I'm not saying it can replace the human. Yep. So that you can. So then it can produce some combinations. You're like, I never thought of that one. I'll try it. And then you look at it. Maybe it's not quite right.

53:35 But again, that feedback loop, you feedback to the AI that wasn't quite right for this reason. So next time it's even better and you can build up that knowledge base so that you can develop products that maybe you never even thought of. And it's compressing the time frame from having an idea to having the product on the shelf.

53:55 You go back 1020 years, 18 months. Here's the idea from marketing. Here's all the stuff we've done, It's on the shelf in 18 months, in 18 months. Now consumers forgotten about that trend. That's long gone. 18 weeks is too long now developing a new product, you need to try and get that down. If you get into 18 days, you probably can't, but you need to get it down to a a few months in order to take advantage of a consumer trend. Consumer trends are changing so quickly that you need to be able to do that.

54:26 And AI enables you to come up with those combinations of ingredients and ways of making things and ways of evaluating products that we never had before. No substitute for humans in the mix because as I say, humans eat food, AI doesn't. So the final arbiter has to be a human. But I think that's where the big difference is coming. And we're seeing companies like AI Pallet based out of Singapore, taste wise based out of Israel in America, the Institute of Food Technologies have their Co developer AI that we're seeing AI come into food products in a big way now and making a big difference.

55:07 All the major companies where you're talking Unilever, Danone, Nestle, they are all using AI to develop their products. And that is a is having a huge effect on how quickly companies can react to changing food trends. A while. So how do they balance the short term and the long term strategy? Well, if you look in in terms of product development or. Yes, yes, exactly.

55:40 In terms of product development, because you know you're talking about that rapid change right, in consumer behaviour. So how do you get to balance that short term strategy versus the long term strategy? It's it's very, very good for short term because of course then you compress the time it takes from idea to product on the shelf.

56:04 Looking at long term, it's goes back to fundamental research, so finding molecules that do things that you didn't know they could do or developing new products. So looking at genomics, so you can look at, OK, how do I engineer this microbe to make that particular product which takes a longer period of time?

56:28 How do I look at this particular molecule that we need to make to make it sweeter, to make it taste this way, it tastes that way. So using AI to develop those products in more an R&D phase than an application phase, that's going to affect what we what we develop in the the long term. Interesting.

56:50 And you know you've actually speaking from the business side now, right? You've actually worked with global brands and as well as start-ups. I think you would agree with me that the start-ups have more flexibility when it comes to executing strategy on like the big global brands. But the big brands tend to have the advantage in terms of the resources that they have control over. So what would you say are the biggest strategic mistakes that both groups are make?

57:29 I think The thing is that what we're seeing with AIAI is democratizing product development. So whereas before the large companies had the big advantage, they had lots of legacy data, they had lots of knowledge, lots of things that their people knew that other people didn't know, that's disappearing now. We're finding that small companies can have access through AI and through some of the ingredients companies to the same level of technology as the Nest, Lays and Danones and so on of this world.

58:04 So that's what we're seeing. And I can visit your day where you can a small company or a startup, you can make a phone call or a video call or on your watch or whatever we're using in 1020 years time. So I want a formulation for a product that does this, this, this and this, and I need to make it on these machines and so on.

58:23 And the AI other end goes or words that effect and then says here you are. I've got three different formulations I think will do what you want. You say thank you. How much is that? And they say $250. So instead of $25,000, it's now $250. They say you said your own AI. Just please pay that AI the 250 please, and put the formulations in my inbox or in my file folder.

58:52 Thank you very much. And you get the three, you try them, they're 95% right. You tweak them and you've got your product. You might be a very small organization, but you're going to have access to the same amount of horsepower in developing a product as the large companies. Because as times are changing and consumers are changing so quickly, the advantage of knowing what consumers wanted 20 years ago disappears.

59:21 Who cares what consumers wanted 20 years ago? What they wanted 20 months ago might still be relevant, but 20 years ago? Forget it. And as we get further and further along that legacy data is likely become less and less valuable compared to knowing what's happening now or what might happen in three months time or happened three months ago.

59:43 So I think that that's the that's the big thing is that's what's going to happen in the future is there's going to be this democratization of the ability to develop and manufacture products. The big disadvantage for startups is scaling. We have the scale up Valley of Death. So you can get your product, you can prove it at pilot scale and then you might need a couple of $100 million to commercialize it and scale it.

1:00:08 That's where the difficulty comes in, because particularly at the moment, AI is sucking the lifeblood out of venture capital. Everyone their dog in venture capital wants to investing somehow in AI. Otherwise I need to. FOMO. Fear of missing out on AI? Yep, and food organizations generally have much lower multiples than technology.

1:00:33 Thing is, we're always going to need to eat. If you're looking for a long term solid investment, food is generally far better than any technology. It might not make you rich tomorrow, but it's going to keep you in money for a long period of time. And that's though where you have VC who who can get their fund do the funding in the short term. Looking to get a good multiple on exit. You have banks who say show me your turnover for the last 12 months or two years, so I know that you can make money to repay the loan.

1:01:09 That's no good because you're a start up and in the middle. There are very few funders in the middle who will say, well OK, I'm prepared to take less than the VC, but I'm got a bigger risk appetite than a bank. So I will fund you in that scale up phase so you can go back to the bank in three or five years time.

1:01:28 Say here's my history, here's my profitability. That's why I think I can borrow 2 or 300 million from you to build my next factory. And that's that's where the the problems are for those small companies. And I think they underestimate how hard scale up is going to be. I think that's the big issue for the difficulty. In scaling start up companies.

1:01:56 Yep, it is. Very very and you need a different. Set of skills compared to founding exactly. Exactly. Exactly. But but where should capital be deployed today for the highest long term return in food innovation? Well, as I was saying, I can't predict the future. So because I can't predict the future, I can't really predict for you 1 technology.

1:02:24 What I would say is take AVC type approach, spread your portfolio across different technologies and different companies, different organizations act like a venture capital, do a deep dive so you really understand not just a superficial level, but at a deep level the technology you're investing in. And then invest in a portfolio of companies because you can look at it and go, well, say there's our alternative futures, which if, if these futures, one of them comes off and I've got five companies that future comes off. All three of them all, all be successful. That one and three will be successful. That one, three will be successful. There might be 3 different ones in each case. But depending on what future

1:03:08 comes to pass, you will have a portfolio that's going to give you a good return. So spreading your your risk base really is what it's about with these new technologies. Hey, amazing, amazing take. So what are the signals that tell you if a company is future ready versus if they are already obsolete? Well, I think looking if, if they are future ready, then they are adopting these new technologies. They're looking at them, they're saying, OK, how do I add them as an opportunity into my business?

1:03:53 So they're looking at and saying, well, OK, this could be a competitor, but maybe it's not a competitor, Maybe it's something I can add on to the organization. There's a company in Australia, a dairy company called Norco, and they invested in a company called Eden Brew who were using precision fermentation to make dairy ingredients.

1:04:11 So rather than circling the wagons and trying to kill this company, they invested in them. So that seems to me they're thinking they're looking to the future, they're looking at the opportunities. The companies that are already obsolete are the ones that are going. I need to get my marketing department to tell people how horrible this new technology is, how bad it is, why they shouldn't do it. I need to do everything I can to block it. I need to speak to my representative in in government and get them to stop funding for it. I need and I need to do, we need to do more of my stuff that I've got because I don't want to change. I just want to keep doing what I've always done because that will always make us successful.

1:04:48 So I look for those signals that these companies, those are the 2 ends of the spectrum. There are ones in the middle, but the people who are really looking at the future, embracing the future, embracing new technologies as an opportunity, as an add on to their business. And those are determined to crush everything new that might change what they do.

1:05:09 I think that is an interesting take across the Life is harder, or would I say life is the hardest right now for lobbyists that it has ever been at any point in time in history, because I think the democratization of of information has just made it very, very difficult. So we have what is closest in history to having a perfect market situation like we're taught in economics class.

1:05:39 You know, there's, there's, I think we, we keep getting closer to the concept of a perfect market of perfect competition right in, in this age and time. Many thanks to, you know, the proliferation of our information by the LLMS, by the AI systems. But we do have what I say, a large population of founders, entrepreneurs that listen to this podcast.

1:06:09 So if a founder is listening right now, what is one decision they cannot afford to delay today? Oh, can't afford to delay. I mean it, it is going, I hate to say it again, going back to what we say, how am I going to scale this? How am I going to be able to manufacture this at a commercial scale?

1:06:35 Not just thinking about I need to get this to pilot scale and then I'll prove I can make it and then everybody will come running to me with money. No, you need to think way beyond that into the commercialization side of things and say to yourself, I've got it up and running, I've got it at pilot stage. Now how am I going to cross that scale up Valley of Death to actually get my product to market to where I can prove sales and I can then prove to investors, including banks that I am worthy of their money?

1:07:08 I think that would be the single thing I would say to them, just don't stop at there we are. I've made the product, now everybody's going to give me money. Might have worked 5 or 10 years ago, maybe it's not going to work now. They're, you know, the companies are far. Even VCs are far more choosy about what they invest in. You have to have a convincing point of difference. I was speaking to someone the other day and they said yeah I've had people come to me with ideas and they put into ChatGPT and chat GP told told them it was a wonderful idea and I said to them, well I can, I can at least 5 competitors right now. You didn't do your due diligence. Make sure you have a true point of difference. If you're just one of a range of

1:08:02 companies did exactly the same thing people have already invested in. No, you need to have a compelling point of difference from the other people in that start up and founder space. And if you've got that compelling point of difference and you can show how that can go through to scale up and commercialization, then I think you've got a compelling proposition for funding.

1:08:26 Exactly, you, you have to prove the innovation and of course you, you need to prove the differentiation as well in this age of tax, you know. But let's talk about your personal philosophy and legacy, right? What does legacy mean to you in the context of global food systems? I mean, if you're looking at from from my personal point of view, from my, my legacy, you mean at a mother or? Yes, definitely.

1:08:59 When it's all said and done, like what would you like your legacy to be in the context of the global food systems? I'd like my. Legacy to be that I I'd like it to be that I inspired people to optimism. I am at basis a techno optimist, not in a political or social point of view, but I believe there's not a problem in the world that cannot be solved through the correct application of technology. I look at it as a technology has solved humanity's problems since the dawn of time.

1:09:31 From the invention of the plow to grow more food to antibiotics, to mRNA vaccines. Technology has always solved humanity's problems. It always has and it always will. So I am an optimist. People say, oh, we've got to feed all these people and this problem that probably all we have a history literally of solving problems through technology for 10s of thousands of years. Why we think all of a sudden we're going to come across a problem that's so insolvable that humanity is going to collapse.

1:10:09 I don't believe that. And if we'd looked at what we talked about with Africa, of the next 2.5 billion people coming onto the planet in in to 2051 billion of those are going to come from Africa. And the young minds that are going to come into society with their dreams and their ideas and their optimism on life, I think is a wonderful thing that we're going to see and that we should be looking to the future with optimism. I mean, one of the things that saddened me the most, one of my wife's friends said that she'd had someone come to her and say, when are you going to give that your kids? You know, I think you're probably sub 10 years old. When are you going to give them the talk that basically they're pretty well doomed and the

1:10:56 world's going to burn? When are you going to tell them that? I, I was appalled and saddened that anyone would think that that's what you need to tell your children. No, that's not right. I mean, we see too much negativity on the TV, too much sci-fi. We don't. See all yeah, it's all my too much dystopian sci-fi.

1:11:19 We need more Star Trek. We need more Star Trek with that utopian view of what could happen rather than the dystopian view of things like Blade Runner, however entertaining they may be. That's not what we want. We want the utopian version or as close to that as we can get, and we can do it. And yes, technologies can be used for good or evil. You can take your plow and beat it into a sword and kill people, or you can keep growing food with it, right? No.

1:11:50 Technology can be is solely for good or solely for evil. We have a choice as human beings as to how we use these technologies, how we're going to control them, how we're going to use them to benefit all of humanity. And we can do that. I think there's no reason that we can't healthily, sustainably and fairly feed our 11 billion entities, including our pets in 2050 and the 1314 billion maybe on the planet by 2100. I don't think there's any reason that we can't do that. But that future is in our own hands, whether we do it, whether we achieve that or not, I take the optimistic view that that's possible.

1:12:35 That's what we should be going for, and if I had a legacy, it would be the person that when they listened to, came away from our podcast, Adamola optimistic and inspired as to what could happen in the future. Amazing, amazing stuff. So, Speaking of being optimistic, when the world looks back at this generation of leaders, what do you hope they have to say? I think they will.

1:13:09 What would I hope they will look back and say yes, possibly more than possibly. This generation created a range of problems, some unintended consequences, some through lack of care, but they finally came to the realization that the future of the planet and future generations was still within their hands and still within their grasp.

1:13:38 That it was not at the point where nothing could be done and it was basically we're all doomed no matter what we do now. That the leaders took that situation and made something of it to improve the future of the coming generations. That's a fantastic take. So when it comes to you personally, what what drives you to stay at the forefront of this space even after decades of experience?

1:14:11 Look, I think it's two things, Adam Alla, I am basically an optimist. I'd like to believe the optimistic view of the future. And even though I've been around for a few years, that endless curiosity when I look at something and find something in my newsletter, in my research and I go like, wow, look at that.

1:14:34 How ingenious are we as humans that we've managed to do this? And the endless curiosity and amazement at what we can do. I continue to be amazed. I continue to enjoy what I do and I find it endlessly fascinating. And that ability in consulting, but in particularly in the speaking, to go out and tell people about what's going on and to spread the word on what's going on in new technologies and say that that endless innovation and of, of, of humanity, that's what keeps me going. I I've really thoroughly enjoyed that. I I love that.

1:15:13 And of course, you know, there's something about people who love knowledge, who love to learn. You always find yourself, when I say, running down different rabbit holes. And of course, you know, you just invited me yourself that like, there was a time I was reading a newsletter just in the evening only to discover that AE put me on research board into the midnight. And I asked myself, like, who sent you to do this? Yeah, suddenly an hour or two hours gone by, like good grade. Where did that go?

1:15:56 And then you just keep going down the rabbit hole that it's, it's that curiosity. And I think it's, it's a common denominator when you look at people who end up becoming elite level experts. I tell people the best in the world are the best in the world for a reason, right? You can't take away the place of, you know, that hunger.

1:16:18 You can't teach a person to be curious. I, I, I don't know how to teach a person to be curious. You need to you need to want to know it by yourself and that's how you know you end up getting when I say people who become elite level experts at what is that they do. I don't know if you ever intended to become a futurist or to be known as a futurist, but that curiosity LED you into the research that made you become, what I say, globally relevant.

1:16:47 And of course, I think it's something we need to tell people listening to us today. Like you always have to develop that curiosity, right? Be curious about something, about something relevant and something meaningful. And yeah, things will definitely shake off. Wow. And I think the other. Thing is, I think as a futurist, you have to be part dreamer.

1:17:12 You have to dream of the future. You have to dream of a future that you want to see become reality and strive to help people to embrace that future and for that dream to become a reality. I mean, my, I hopefully I can make it to 2050. I hope to look back in 2050 and go, yes, that dream of healthy, sustainable, fairly feeding the global population has come to pass that dream.

1:17:43 So I think you have to be not just curious that curiosity. I think that's intertwined with being a dreamer as well. You're so curious that you dream of how these things can influence the future and how they could become reality. Speaking of dreaming, I'll give you this line. I think you'd like it. You cannot feature in the future that you cannot picture. How about that?

1:18:12 You cannot. You cannot feature in the future that you cannot feature, so I'll give you that lie. I like it. I like it. Thank you. Thank you very much. Going to. Make a note of that one. You cannot feature in the future that you cannot feature guys. You heard it on the King Goose podcast first before before Tony Hunter. Well, he's going to want royalties, folks. He's going to want royalties before Tony. Hunter takes it and puts it on one of the keynote speeches. And then at the moment we'll see it and go where's my royalties? Where's my royalties?

1:19:09 No, no, no. I started a way for you. That's my gift to you today before before we heat the quick fire round. So it's five questions, you know, quick answers, right? So let me know Are you ready to rumble? Hey, I'm ready. I'm ready question. Nice, you were born ready. Number one question is 1, Food innovation that will shock the world in the next 10 years. What is 1 field innovation that will shock the world in the next 10 years?

1:19:45 Yeah. I think the innovation that will shock the world is someone coming up with a product that will improve our health span towards our lifespan so that we don't spend 10 to 15 years of cognitive decline and physical decline. Someone who invents that, that will shock people. I think I'm shocked already thinking about it. I am shocked already.

1:20:13 Well #2 #2 is what is 1 belief about food that people need to unlearn immediately today. They need to unlearn that anyone diet suits absolutely everyone. We are all highly individual and we need individual personalized diets. Wow, please, can you repeat that again? Can you let the people out the back hear that?

1:20:55 Because I think a lot of people need to realize this, you know, that there's no one-size-fits-all, you know, plan. And yeah, don't, don't let me come for some people on the Internet. Don't let me call for some people because they're people who I think you've seen them. You've seen them already.

1:21:17 I'm not going to, I'm not going to call them out. I'll leave that to you to call them out. Wow. #3 is if you had $1,000,000 to invest today in food tech, where would it go to? I would put. It into something based on what's my one of my favorite technologies, right. There's lots of technologies, but plant molecular farming where you put the gene for a compound you want, like casein into a soybean.

1:21:55 You grow the soybeans, take out the casein to make cheese and process the rest of the soybean. I'd invest in that technology. Interesting stuff. What is 1 habit that keeps you ahead of exponential? Change it. Goes back again, Adamundo, as you said, for all futures. Endless, boundless curiosity. As I say, If I only knew now what I knew six months ago, I would be completely useless.

1:22:27 Things change so quickly When I speak, I check my slides the night before to make sure nothing's changed with the companies I'm going to use as examples because things change so quickly. I have changed slides the night before a presentation because they weren't right anymore. They changed since I wrote them when I got on the plane a couple of days beforehand. Wow.

1:22:52 It's, it's, it's, it's quite interesting the, the rapid, you know, change in technology. We have it. I, I once spoke with a guy, he, he, he, he was named on the Forbes 30 under 30 Alexandra Hampson you have from Canada. And then he was talking about how himself and his team were developing a tech solution, I think for the aerospace industry. And guess what, Just midway in the development of that product, the technology in this space changed. And what it is that they were developing became obsolete. And it's crazy.

1:23:34 It's crazy how technology can be you just midway development of product. And of course, the product is already out of fashion. So what would be your final message to leaders viewed in the future of Humanity True Feud? Well, I think there are only two things that you need to do in order to stay alive, right? Drink and eat.

1:24:03 So you're in the business of the survival of humanity. That is the business that you're in now. Food. We have to eat food to be healthy, but we have to acknowledge as a food industry that we have caused a lot of the problems that we've seen, lifestyle related diseases like type 2 diabetes, obesity and things like that. And as the food industry, it's our obligation to say, knowing what we now know in terms of the effects on the consumer, the population, knowing what we now know in technology, nutrition and everything else, how do we ensure that our food products are healthy for human beings and they do not contribute to disease?

1:25:02 That, I think, is something as food executives, we really need to think deeply about. Maybe we didn't quite know it 10 or 20 years ago, but we do know it now and we can't stick a head in the sand. We have to say, how do we change? Wow, interesting. I think I'll disagree with you on something. I'll say there are 4 things you need to do to stay alive #1 breathe in oxygen #2 eat food #3 drink water, and #4 listen or watch The Kingdom's podcast. I missed that last one.

1:25:40 I should have got that last one. Wow, thank you very much. You know, for, for, for your time today, you know, today it has actually been powerful. And of course, you have given us modern insights, you've given us golden Nuggets. And of course, you've given us a legs to see the future. And of course, for everyone listening, this is your moment.

1:26:04 The future is not something you wait for. It is something you decide. And of course, as always, we build legacy by opening doors. So from me to the audience, it is, you know, always go for something in your lives, conceive belief, strive to thrive and go achieve. And of course, for me, it's actually goodbye.

1:26:25 But from Tony Hunter, do you have any last words? Do you have anybody to give a shout out to? And I'll leave you to say your goodbye. I mean, my thanks, Adam, all that. Thanks very much for the opportunity to be on the podcast. It's been an honour to be on the podcast with you. Thank you very much.

1:26:43 And just basically to my fellow futurists out there, all the other people on the Global Gurus Top 30 and others who are out there, keep doing the work, keep looking to the future because we need to create the future that we want to see. Because what I always say to companies, look, if you don't look at what you can do to create the future you want, someone else will create one for you.

1:27:10 And you may not like the one they create for you. Wow. That is deep. That is deep. So shout out to all of your, you know, futurist colleagues that that I have interviewed so far, you know, Diana Wu, David Brett King, Bronwyn Williams. Yeah. My friend Rohit Tawar in London. Rohit, Rohit Tower. Yeah, Rohit Tower.

1:27:45 He's my friend as well. We're connected. We we should, we should, we should bring him on the podcast as well. Rohit Tower, if you see this, you can see it's it's time for you to be on board. Who else? Who else? What names are we forgetting? And. Another futurist from Australia called Michael McQueen, he's a very good trends person, speaks a lot, very well known globally so shout out to Michael as well. Local Australian guy Michael.

1:28:17 I know Michael. I know Michael McQueen. I think I, I dropped a comment on his LinkedIn post yesterday. Yeah, Michael, he he always has like fantastic takes. I think I love futures. I do love futures. Like you cannot help but love the futures. Wow. So once again for me again, it's thank you. It's it's a love and respect to you. And of course, guys, you know what to do, like subscribe, comment and of course, share, share this share with your friends and your foes, right.

1:28:52 Everybody needs to be future proof. So goodbye guys. Uh.