“How can you bring people to the ethical and humane way of bringing people edible, traceable food?“
Gabrielle “Ellie” Rubenstein is the Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Manna Tree Partners, a private equity company focused on growth equity investments in companies that will revolutionize the food supply chain.
Food has changed dramatically over the past 50 years, but big food isn’t entirely to blame. The disconnect was between the farmers growing the food and the doctors who could advise the best way to raise or collect it. “How do you get healthy, cheap, faster food in the hands of people? Big food can play a part in that.”
In the COVID era, health and wellness can save your life. Only 12% of the United States population is metabolically healthy, and the Middle East has the highest rates of diabetes globally. “I don’t think we fully understood the linkages between human health and a poor diet until the last five years.”
LISTEN AND SUBSCRIBE
SPEAKER
Ellie Rubenstein
Co-Founder & CEO
Manna Tree Partners
MODERATOR
Anthony Scaramucci
Founder & Managing Partner
SkyBridge
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
John Darsie: (00:08)
Hello, everyone. Welcome back to SALT Talks. My name is John Darsie. I'm the Managing Director of SALT, which is a global thought leadership forum at the intersection of finance, technology, and public policy. SALT talks are a series of digital interviews that we've been doing that originated during this work from home period. But given the success and the fun that we've had with it, it is going to continue indefinitely. They are a series of interviews we've been doing with leading investors, creators, and thinkers.
John Darsie: (00:33)
What we really try to do with this SALT Talk series is replicate the experience that we provide at our SALT Conference series that we've done annually in Las Vegas since 2009, as well as in Abu Dhabi, Singapore and Tokyo. Our goal there is really to provide our audience a window into the mind of subject matter experts, as well as provide a forum and a platform for what we think are big important ideas that are shaping the future.
John Darsie: (00:57)
Today, we're very excited to welcome Ellie Rubenstein to SALT Talks. Ellie is the Co-Founder and the CEO of Manna Tree Partners, which is a Vail, Colorado-based investment firm that invests in companies focused on human health and well-being. Ellie has over 10 years of experience in the asset management industry, including as a partner with a well-known, high net worth family office in Los Angeles as the Co-Founder of PT Holdings, which is an Arctic asset manager headquartered in Anchorage, Alaska, which is where Ellie is coming to us right now. As well as a Founding Investor of the Alaska Angel Investment Network. As a member of a prominent family of asset managers, Ellie has been involved and mentored in the industry since a young age.
John Darsie: (01:39)
Ellie holds a Master's and an MBA in food and agribusiness management. It's a very interesting dual degree program that awards a Master's in agricultural economics from Purdue University and an MBA from Indiana University's Kelley School of Business. While studying at Indiana, she was honored to be accepted into the Tobias Leadership Fellows program. Ellie attended her undergrad at Harvard University, where she received a BA in sociology with an honors thesis on philanthropy. She was also a varsity ski racer at Harvard. Having experienced the healing power of food and the outdoors in her own life, she also earned a graduate certificate in Mind-Body wellness from UCLA Center for East-West Medicine and the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior.
John Darsie: (02:26)
Ellie's role as CEO of Manna Tree includes driving a strong culture towards the firm's billion-dollar vision to revolutionize the food supply chain. She leads the firm's fundraising efforts and as a member of the Investment Committee for expertise of global food systems. Our international network creates meaningful value for mandatory partners fund investors.
John Darsie: (02:46)
Ellie is also an active philanthropist. She was awarded the Presidential Volunteerism medal and currently serves on the American Red Cross as a lead volunteer advisor for service to armed forces at its national headquarters and as a Board Member of the Mission and Outreach Committee at the American Red Cross of Alaska. Ellie also serves on various local boards and initiatives focused mainly on military, public policy, health and education type of initiatives.
John Darsie: (03:12)
Ellie is an avid hunter. She's out in Alaska for hunting season right now, as I'm sure we'll talk about on the talk, and a fisher woman. She spends much of her free time on the shores or in the woods pursuing different protein sources. She's a self-described foodie and enjoys nothing more than sharing the nutritious food that she has harvested with her family and friends.
John Darsie: (03:31)
A reminder if you have any questions for Ellie during today's SALT Talk, you can enter them in the Q&A box at the bottom of your screen. With that, I'm going to turn it over to Anthony Scaramucci, who's the Founder and Managing Partner of SkyBridge Capital, a global alternative investment firm, as well as the Chairman of SALT to conduct the interview. Anthony, take it away.
Anthony Scaramucci: (03:49)
So, Darsie, you and I are the underachievers on this call, okay? I mean, you could have gone on for another two hours on Ellie's exceptional resume. But thank you so much for joining us, Ellie. But forget about your resume for a second and all the other stuff. Let's focus on that seminal moment when you decided you wanted to be a hunter. How old were you? What were you doing? How did it become a lifelong hobby of yours?
Ellie Rubenstein: (04:19)
Well, first of all, thank you for having me. I don't think in my entire life I've ever heard somebody read my resume, so cathartic experience. It felt like I was just attending my funeral, made me realize maybe I should sleep and not do so much. But anyways, thank you. Yeah, that is a really interesting question as I sit here in Alaska.
Anthony Scaramucci: (04:40)
Darcy is available for eulogies, by the way. I mean, he's [inaudible 00:04:43].
Ellie Rubenstein: (04:43)
I think you'd make my parents proud if you read that in my funeral.
Anthony Scaramucci: (04:47)
We want to wait to your 150 before we eulogize you, okay? Him and I will be long gone before you leave planet. Alright, but go ahead, keep going.
Ellie Rubenstein: (04:55)
So, it's an interesting way to grow up. I don't know that many people know this, but my father's company, they actually started with their first deal in Alaska. My mother was pregnant with me at the time. I guess when they close the first deal, which was the net operating losses on Alaska Native corps, they said, "We'll bring your family up and we'll celebrate. You go to the hunting and fishing lodges." Now my mother did grow up as an avid outdoorsman. So, if you tell a woman that they can go to Alaska, you might not get her to leave. So, that's what ended up happening. So, I grew up with my mom, mostly in Alaska.
Anthony Scaramucci: (05:31)
Where did your mom grow up, Ellie?
Ellie Rubenstein: (05:35)
Actually, it was interesting. She's from Nutley, New Jersey, but they moved overseas because my grandfather... He was career navy. When he retired, they lived in Paris. He was an IT in France, and he actually has 19 patents to his name. He was one of the inventors of GPS technology. So, he was an avid fisherman that believed his three daughters should be outsourcing their own food. My mom's aunt lived in Norway. So, she spent summers in Norway hunting and fishing. So, she grew up with a very subsistence lifestyle and her mother was a chef. So, if you were sick in the family, that meant homemade chicken soup where somebody had to go get the chicken and you roasted it down for three days.
Ellie Rubenstein: (06:16)
So, in our family, I'm not sure that my father liked that way of raising us, because it was always about what's the cost per blueberry, what it takes to keep the garden of blueberries. But everything in our family, for our meals, for Thanksgiving was sourced. That was just really the way we grew up. So, I think it was less about hunting and more about my earliest memories were being two years old and mom throwing us in the car, driving down to St. Michael's Maryland, where my grandfather became a blue crab man in retirement. We were pulling crab lines.
Ellie Rubenstein: (06:47)
So, my brother and I love the excitement of pulling crab lines. We're always finding ways that we could get up earlier and go dig mussels or dig clams or help make clams casino for Thanksgiving, with the clams we would dig. Those were our memories.
Ellie Rubenstein: (07:02)
So, I think for my father who doesn't actually eat meat, my mother was the one who was the hunter, but it was always a proud moment where she would be gone moose hunting for 10 days. When you're a young kid and need homework help and your mom is out moose hunting, you're kind of tough out a lot. So, it was really cool when she would send pictures home of her moose. I was like, "That is awesome. My mom is out moose hunting." So, I guess the long-winded answer to that is I actually learned how to shoot at summer camp, and I was eight years old. I wasn't a great athlete. So, everyone was playing soccer tennis, and they had a rifle re-option.
Ellie Rubenstein: (07:41)
So, I learned how to shoot a 22. I like getting all the ribbons and I came home with the ribbons. And then when we were in Europe during the summer with my dad fundraising, my dad would leave us at the carnival every day. You're allowed to have also kids to shoot 22. So, I was shooting the 22s for hours and dad would come pick us up. I'd wind all these big stuffed animals. So, I started to learn like, "Okay, maybe I'm good at this thing." I do think that women are better and better shooters.
Ellie Rubenstein: (08:07)
So, to this day, every big game animal that I've killed, which again, I'm a meat eater, not a trophy eater. I've killed in one shot. So, I'm very proud of that. I really, really love sourcing my own food, which is why Manna came about. One last story I'll share with you, I actually just ended a long-term relationship. I always think back to the pivotal moment of a question he asked me when we-
Anthony Scaramucci: (08:30)
Did you shoot him, Ellie, or you let him go? Did you shoot him or no? No, you didn't shoot him?
Ellie Rubenstein: (08:34)
I think he wanted me to hunt and fish more than I do, which is hard to imagine. I probably misinterpreted the statement I'm about to say. We were out hunting. We were up in the upper Noatak, which is up in the Arctic. We were sitting on a caribou on the hills, caring for caribou, and I will never forget it. He looked at me and he said, "What does Ellie want?" I said, "Well, I just want to hunt and fish and able to make money doing something similar to this, because I'm really happy out here."
Ellie Rubenstein: (09:04)
So, I guess I might have misinterpreted that and built a global investment firm, but I do think that it always comes back to the root. So, how can you bring people to the ethical and humane way of bringing people edible traceable food. Hunting and fishing is something that most of our LP base really relates to. It's just the easiest way to source food that you can trace.
Anthony Scaramucci: (09:24)
Well, my dad is from Northeastern Pennsylvania and so he's been hunting and fishing his entire life. So, I learned how to shoot at age 10. I'm-
Ellie Rubenstein: (09:34)
Wow.
Anthony Scaramucci: (09:35)
... New Yorker now, but I have a Winchester semi-automatic and I have a 12-gauge shotgun, which you would know about me. I don't really advertise that. But every Friday, after Thanksgiving, we were in the woods somewhere tracking deer.
John Darsie: (09:51)
Anthony's idea of camping is the four seasons. Let's not kid ourselves here.
Anthony Scaramucci: (09:54)
That's totally true. I'm not in love with shooting Bambi to be honest, but that's fine. Everybody's got different views of this stuff, but I am a big Second Amendment person because I did grow up with guns. Let's switch gears because I want to talk about obesity and diabetes. I want to talk about plate sizes. So, Michael Milken has a great slide. He shows a diner plate in 1960. It's about this big, Ellie. And then he shows an Olive Garden plate in 2020, and it's about this big, Ellie. We are eating more. We're consuming more. We're putting antibiotics in our meat. Is this contributing to our high incidence, almost epidemic levels of diabetes? If it is, what would you say we need to do about it to curb it?
Ellie Rubenstein: (10:41)
Yeah, there's no doubt about it. In the last 50 years, our food has changed. But if you go back into history and look at what happened, I don't think pointing fingers at Big Food is to blame or Big Ag, because what they were trying to do back then was feed a growing population in a more efficient way. So, in many ways, having the technology to get more food was great. You had shelf stable food. It could be reached, and it was also cheaper. But I also think that where people sometimes get wrong is we need to work with Big Food and Ag, because those companies have processes that are at scale. Nobody wants to harm a human being's health. I think that's a misnomer. I don't think a farmer wants to make food that's going to make somebody unhealthy.
Ellie Rubenstein: (11:24)
The missing link here is that farmers don't work enough with doctors, nor are they in tune together. So, one of the things that we've really enjoyed with is working with Tufts University and Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian was a really big mentor to us. What he says is today in the US, only 12% of the US population is metabolically healthy. So, in the era of COVID, we should be more focused on how do you lower the obesity and diabetes and pre-existing conditions that might exasperate a COVID condition than just talking about hand sanitizers and masks. They seem like short term fix.
Ellie Rubenstein: (11:58)
I'm not trying to get into the mask game here, but what we need to do is figure out how do you get healthy, cheap, faster food into the hands of people that need it the most. So, our firm is not trying to kind of make the wealthier healthier. They know how to do that. We're really focused on the people that can reach it affordable. So, honestly, Big Food plays a part in that. We need to clean up the ingredients in the accessible, cheaper food for the average person.
Ellie Rubenstein: (12:26)
One more thing on that, it's not just the US. The Middle East actually has some of the highest rates of diabetes. I sometimes point blame on my father's company, because in the heydays of private equity, they were exporting a lot of our fast food chain. Fast food wasn't ever made to be healthy, but it wasn't about harming human health. I don't think we actually clearly understood the linkages between human health and poor diet until the last five years.
Ellie Rubenstein: (12:53)
As Mike Milken says, who both you and I obviously really well respect... When we were starting, he said, "Food is where the internet is 15 years ago." That's how fast the transformation of the food and ag supply chain is happening and it's global, because food is a global supply system. So, where the ingredients are, where the production is, and where the end consumer is, we need global trade in order to make it healthier.
Anthony Scaramucci: (13:19)
So, what does it look like? Let's paint the picture of 2030 for food. What does it look like? What would you like it to look like? What is it going to look like? What do we need to do to make it look more like the way you would like to see it?
Ellie Rubenstein: (13:34)
The simple statement is this. It's harder to achieve. But what we would like to see is in the US, 7 out of the 10 causes of death are linked to lifestyle. The number one of that is poor diet and nutrition. So, the only way we can start to reduce the causes of death being away from it's not just cancer or heart attacks. We are focused on the links of poor health. So, how can we make sure that the human health outcomes can be linked to diet and nutrition.
Ellie Rubenstein: (14:03)
Frankly, people can be incentivized to be healthy. I would love to see a system where it's not just a carbon tax, but where's the reward for being healthy? We all pay health insurance premium, but you're being paid to go to the doctor. So, why can't there be something a reward for purchasing healthy food, which might cost a little bit more, or getting your steps in?
Ellie Rubenstein: (14:22)
So, we think that large insurance companies are actually playing a part of this. The fact that John Hancock has a vitality product now, which incentivize you to live healthy, not incentivizes you to die. We have to change the whole incentive system. Changing the behavior, Anthony, is the hardest thing. You can't just all of a sudden tell somebody for seven years of bad eating that they're going to eat healthier. My father is a classic example. He grew up on vending machine food. He's not overnight going to crave healthier food. But if you change the incentives as well as change ways to get to them and target healthy lifestyles, that's what we have to preach.
Ellie Rubenstein: (14:55)
So, it's a trifold model we'd love to see happen. We'd love to see more informed capital come into the space with better investment metrics linking ESG and health outcome. We'd love to see policy changes. We'd also love to see an education around nutrition. The average person doesn't really know what a nutrition label is and what they should be eating.
Anthony Scaramucci: (15:15)
Well, I have sympathy for your dad because I grew up on Howard Johnson's fried clams on Wednesday nights. It was an all you can eat buffet. So, I get it. Your first two investments, the Vital Farms and Verde Farms focused on sustainable farm products and animal proteins to consumers. So, what is the future of plant-based foods? How do we scale that to meet the needs of this growing population?
Ellie Rubenstein: (15:43)
One of the interesting things, so we have four companies in our portfolio today. Two are plant-based and two are other proteins, the eggs and beef. In the plant-based space, I think what people have to understand is where the plant-based movement is, is actually using these ingredients for meat analogues. Which means that people still want to eat meat, but they want more plants in it. So, I think what MycoTechnology has done well is it built out a plant at scale that uses fermentation. So, this is food science at its best. How can we get mushrooms, ferment them down so that they're usable ingredients to make big brands healthier?
Ellie Rubenstein: (16:20)
Our chickpea company is the same thing. It's using chickpeas, and it's really in the better for you snack product. But I think that what Vital and Verde have done is they've given a model for farmers. It's pure conscious capitalism in a multi-stakeholder approach. So, it's a win for farmers, because they actually are now paid the highest per capita of any farmers. They feel aligned with a brand and company that matches their ethics.
Ellie Rubenstein: (16:46)
So, in today's world, Anthony, 77% of consumers are making purchases that they think are going to attribute to their personal health, but it doesn't stop with the halo health effect. 62% of them want ethical companies and then 55% of them want animal welfare. So, animal welfare doesn't necessarily mean being vegetarian. It means being humane, because it's clear now that the ESG linkages, if you treat the environment and the animal well, you will get healthier food. So, I think that's what we've been trying to say.
Ellie Rubenstein: (17:16)
It doesn't matter if it's eggs or beef or even seafood. If the farmers, ranchers or fishermen are paid well, if the land is actually utilized well in a circular economy way, you are going to get a higher brand and a traceable product that consumers will purchase.
Anthony Scaramucci: (17:31)
So, a book your dad actually recommended to me was called Spillover by David Quammen. I don't know if you had a chance to read that book. But in the book, I'm just interested in your comment on this of thesis of the book is a human population of one billion, we're sort of okay with the ecosystem. As we get to seven, seven and a half billion, we're starting to now spill over into the animal kingdom. So, we're deforesting. We're doing some aggressive things to the environment, obviously, carbon dioxide emissions, et cetera.
Anthony Scaramucci: (18:06)
One of the things that's happening is you're getting these new tropic transfers of viruses from the animal kingdom to us as mammals. So, the question I want you to react to that is that impacting the way we're food sourcing is the abundance of success that human beings have had on planet Earth. As we head towards 9 or 10 billion people in terms of population, what kind of pressure is that putting on the planet?
Ellie Rubenstein: (18:35)
This statement might be controversial, but I think back to my first day at Purdue and the MS-MBA program-
Anthony Scaramucci: (18:40)
I'm controversial, so I would appreciate you not making controversial statements on our SALT Talk is that I don't like controversy at all. I just wanted to point that out to you.
Ellie Rubenstein: (18:52)
You are an amazing human being. You've taught me to stand up for my beliefs.
Anthony Scaramucci: (18:56)
Alright. The more controversial, the better, Ellie. Let's go here.
Ellie Rubenstein: (19:03)
When you're at Harvard, right, you're taking economics classes. It's a different viewpoint of the professor's in economics versus Purdue. I love Harvard, my cousin is a professor of economics there. But when you're in a Master's program of Agriculture Economics and day one of your world trade class, the professor says, "Well, here's the report on how do you feed the world by 2050." But you need to go into the data and actually look at what the report says. So, when they train you as research to go in and look at the data, you say, "Wait a second, are we really running out of food?" It's very clear that that report was somewhat biased. So, the mismatch is where the food is produced versus where it's needed. So, it's a supply and demand mismatch.
Ellie Rubenstein: (19:48)
So, that's why most people in agriculture are very much fans of the global trade economy, because I don't know if you noticed, Anthony, but most of the beef consumed in this country is not actually from the US. We import these. So, we export our high-quality beef. We import shitty beef, and that's what we're eating. So, when you start looking at the trade flows of food, you say, "Well, that's interesting." So, our beef company is a great example of that. It's actually sourced in Uruguay. The reason being is that you get four times the amount of production down there, because the sunlight is year-round. It's open pastures and open grazing. They don't even call it pasture-raised or grass-fed beef, it's just beef. That's what the environment is.
Ellie Rubenstein: (20:30)
So, what we've tried to do is go around the world and say, "Well, where are the best growing practices and environmental conditions?" Honestly, we don't really focus on the negativity. We look at the models that are working. So, when COVID hit and 80% of the US beef processors shut down, we were focused on the 20%, which are the small producers that didn't have to shut down because they had great worker condition. The facilities were never jam packed to start with. So, it really starts with the culture. In Vital Farms' case, they're 12-year-old company, they've never had an issue of salmonella. They say it's due to strict quality controls.
Ellie Rubenstein: (21:07)
So, that's where I think it's the culture of these firms that we're really looking at of "How do you make sure that it's ethical worker condition?" Because we know that you can focus on deforestation. You can focus on overfishing, but I'm sitting here in Alaska today. I can tell you I have had more fish to be able to feed our investors, feed my family in my entire lifetime. I have never seen so much fish but yet all the headlines say, "There's no fish in Alaska. It's warming. Where are the fish? Wildfires." Well, it wasn't a warm summer here. It's been 55 and raining almost the whole summer and I've never seen so many fish.
Ellie Rubenstein: (21:42)
So, I think if you look back in the Bible, our name is Manna Tree, food from heaven. For years, there's always been cyclical storms, but animals are the most adaptable human beings. So, our beef company CEO is in Alaska right now. He's family vacation. I took him to ground zero of salmon spawning grounds. I wanted him to see where the salmon are produced, right? It's very controversial right now. It's in Bristol Bay with the Pebble Mine. He said, "Have you ever seen of spawning salmon? It's a phenomenon my father has never seen. He always talks about salmon have the greatest sex lives. They go upriver, they spawn. They're very happy." It's actually a pretty cool thing to see, red salmon spawning. He said, "But take a look at the bear over there. We share the salmon with the bears."
Ellie Rubenstein: (22:27)
I think by studying the animals is a better way to do it. The biologists now are saying they're seeing bears in places they've never seen. The fish are here. They came in late, but that's because we had the coldest winter on record in Alaska. So, everything was shifted by a couple of weeks. So, animals are very, very adaptable. But I'm not going to say last summer, it wasn't sad when we had the warmest summer and I saw 25 dead fish in the river. Salmon, it's all about water temperatures and they will have heart attack. So, I don't know. I try to focus on the positives of what we see and the systems that work and the fishermen and farmers that have such strong beliefs in making it right than the negatives in the world.
Anthony Scaramucci: (23:08)
All right, well, I'm going to give John Darsie a chance to get off that salmon porn website that he's looking at. May I ask one more question? And then I'll open it up to audience participation. So, my one last question is about understanding Eastern medicine. Does it help us be healthier in the Western world? Give us some your thoughts and perspectives on that before we go to John.
Ellie Rubenstein: (23:31)
I grown up in a very privileged life with parents that were willing to pay whatever it costs for medical issues. I was born with a genetic hearing loss. I'm actually 37% deaf, and that hearing loss that turned out to my nervous system. I went back and counted. I made 40-
Anthony Scaramucci: (23:45)
Both ear, Ellie, or just on one side?
Ellie Rubenstein: (23:47)
Both.
Anthony Scaramucci: (23:47)
Both ears.
Ellie Rubenstein: (23:48)
Both and it's genetic. I think that's why my taste buds got amplified. So, I love food. I don't know what happened. Yeah, it's genetic, but it's also in my nervous system. So, what that meant is my sensitivities are much higher. My 100%Ashkenazi Jewish heritage, I really had allergies like you've never seen. I've had now two life or death attacks, one being a traumatic brain injury and one being a food allergy. I don't think you're given much more time to live. But as somebody who's been to 40 doctors and had to relearn how to walk and talk with a traumatic brain injury and I've had multiple concussions, multiple ski racing injuries, the doctors and the best names in the hospitals weren't solving my problems.
Ellie Rubenstein: (24:31)
So, my father recently was visiting, and he said, "I think your mother did a good thing for you by getting you to move to Alaska," because it got me off all medicines, all green stuff. I'll credit my ex-partner here. But if you put me in a plane and stare at glaciers, my anxiety will go away. If you put me on medicine, all you've done is made me obsessed about "Am I taking the medicine?", and so much focused on a pharma type of world.
Ellie Rubenstein: (24:55)
So, the culture we built at our firm, wilderness, wellness and well-fed has really been around a lifestyle that I've seen has worked for myself and really focus on a bottoms-up approach about how do we share that with other people. It's transformative to build a work culture where you have 10 healthy employees. We pay for team workouts. It feels more like a business athlete environment, but you watch everybody else be transformed when they take a weekend off. They go hunt with their grandfather in Kansas. It's so much a part of who we are that being in the wilderness and living in a place where we're not just the healthiest county per capita, but it is who we are. So, we preach and live the lifestyle that the farmers and ranchers and fishermen live.
Ellie Rubenstein: (25:35)
So, part of going back to UCLA was actually conquering a brain injury. I was sick of being the patient. When you have a traumatic brain injury, it's the most selfish thing you can do of just every day focusing on yourself. It was really a horrible mental experience. So, I wanted to go back and conquer that. Instead of being the patient of neuropsych, be his student. So, it was more of a personal thing. I also credit my mother who really healed me with nutrition. I really couldn't eat. My digestive system didn't work.
Ellie Rubenstein: (26:08)
So, you're either on feeding tubes or unhealthy food in hospitals. She just said, "Have a bite of my homemade mousse bone broth," or in my case, I got really depressed and homemade salmon eggs. It's not caviar. It's basically an Omega 3 pill. So, I've lived the food as medicine lifestyle. In our family, every time something goes wrong, it's usually you need to go see mom in Alaska. She'll put you on the moose diet for two weeks and you feel better. So, it's very much core to who we are.
Anthony Scaramucci: (26:36)
I'm coming to see mom. I could use a moose diet in my life, but you look amazing. You're doing amazing work. I have to turn it over to John Darsie, okay? He's champing at the bit here for questions.
Ellie Rubenstein: (26:47)
Sure.
Anthony Scaramucci: (26:47)
But I think you have an amazing life story. I think you're making an amazing contribution to everybody. I got to point out there. I'm a very proud investor in Manna Tree Partner. So, thank you for including me.
Ellie Rubenstein: (26:59)
Thank you.
Anthony Scaramucci: (27:00)
Go ahead, Mr. Darsie.
John Darsie: (27:01)
Thank you. You know I get irritable when you leave me out of the conversation. So, I'm excited to jump in. Ellie, I can relate somewhat to what you're talking about. I haven't experienced any major health issues. But during the pandemic, for example, it was becoming a lot. I have three young kids. We were cooped up here in the house in New York, and we escaped out to my wife's family's ranch in Colorado. It was definitely a great experience and just helps with your mental health to live out in wilderness a little bit.
John Darsie: (27:28)
So, I want to go back to the idea of conscious capitalism that you alluded to earlier. It's an idea that is sort of pervading all of finance right now. There's so many mandates that come from institutions and families and high net worth individuals looking to tailor their investments to ESG or sustainability. This idea of conscious capitalism is something that interests me. Could you talk a little bit more about what that means and why investors are so drawn to that idea?
Ellie Rubenstein: (27:56)
When we started, people wanted to label us as an impact fund. My father was and many mentors were really saying, "Don't do it. Because what you need to do is show people you can get the same level of returns with the aspects of the deals that you're looking at." So, we've never labeled our firm one way or another. We don't say ESG. If anything, we're trying to label our firm as a health firm, proving out the linkages of nutrition and health. I think that conscious capitalism is rising. I'm also going to give a shout out to Anthony's son.
Ellie Rubenstein: (28:28)
In our investor base, 30% are women, 20% are next gen that wrote their first ever check into a fund. But out of 130 investors, I will point out 55 of our family offices or institutions we work with, there's a next generation family member that's active. They think that what we tried to do is say to the next generation where conscious capitalism are already part of their daily life. We try to give them a tangible way that they can show their parents this is a real asset class. So, in our dream world, a portfolio would have energy and healthcare within a private equity allocation, which on average is usually about 20%.
Ellie Rubenstein: (29:07)
But how that gets broken up, we would love to see food as an asset class. It really does touch almost every part of the ecosystem, whether that's healthcare, energy or consumer. It has returns. I think that our whole thing has been... We're focused on growth stage. We'd like to be the last capital in. We're actually trying to shorten the time horizons of exits, because the demand is there, and we see the capital. So, that's why we're writing larger checks. I think that's a big part of proving out conscious capitalism is it's not just the venture ecosystem, which has been extremely well funded.
Ellie Rubenstein: (29:40)
The AgFunder report just came out I think last night for the mid-year report. So, far, $2.9 billion invested in this year alone, which will outpace last year. That's great. But I think what we look for is the firms like SUGs of the world. What Lucas Walden has done is incredible, putting that much money into the space, but we're trying to write the $30- to $50-million check. Because what we know is that the buyers actually need profitable companies, they don't want to pay to acquire customers.
Ellie Rubenstein: (30:06)
So, in order to be profitable on that scale, it takes private equity level checks that can get it to that last stage. So, I can't talk too much about Vital Farms, we're still in our silent period. But I think it was a very good indicator that the public markets value what we would say ethical and edible companies. That is the heart of conscious capitalism.
John Darsie: (30:27)
So what level of investment ultimately is going to take to transform the food system globally and get it to the point where we are treating the environment well and able to cater to those who are looking for healthier food options.'
Ellie Rubenstein: (30:44)
For people that are listening and want to invest in food, jump in. This is a trillion-dollar problem that we have to solve. It's not just feeding the world. It's feeding them faster, better and cheaper. So, as we always say in our investment thesis, we look at four areas. We look at the primary resource, meaning the land itself. We look at the processing of it. We look at the distribution, which is the logistics. We look at the consumer brand. In food, if you look at e-commerce over the last five years, all e-commerce not including food was 20% and you know how fast e-commerce has changed our shopping and buying behaviors. But today, food is only 3% of e-commerce. So, things like Amazon acquiring Whole Foods, that is what is needed to transform this.
Ellie Rubenstein: (31:28)
So, the direct-to-consumer buying behaviors that we're seeing right now, in COVID. I mean, the supply chains just don't exist if you say, "Well, how can I get you healthy salmon from Alaska to your doorstep in Long Island?" That fish would be touched nine times before it reached your plate. It should be three, but that's how many middlemen there are. So, we're having to redo the entire loop markets.
Ellie Rubenstein: (31:49)
Well, in seafood, 80% of the market were usually going to food service. That's not just restaurants. That's schools. That's hospitals. That's hotels. You can't just get that product in the grocery store today. You have to redo packaging. You have to redo supply chain. So, anyone's background is needed in this phase. It's pivoting manufacturing processes that can produce more direct-to-consumer type packaging.
Ellie Rubenstein: (32:11)
So, for somebody who's young, I'm 30, this is a 30-year problem that we can stay as a niche asset manager, laser focused on solving this problem. We need everybody's help in collaboration like Anthony and investors that are willing to open up distribution channels and relationships to help scale these food companies.
John Darsie: (32:32)
Yeah, that's fantastic. We were talking before we went live about we have a lot of young families in places like the Middle East who recognize that it's an issue in those societies as well and are committing a significant amount of capital towards addressing these issues.
Ellie Rubenstein: (32:46)
One comment on that is first time I went to Middle East, I was on a Milkean MENA panel. It was fascinating. The other panelist, she's the Minister of Food Security. They don't call it a Minister of Ag there, because food security is the problem. They import 90% of their food to that region. That's not sustainable. So, I think the Middle East has been one of our most beloved LP groups, because the next generation sees that they need to transform their own food. It's not just that it's unhealthy, they need to produce food.
John Darsie: (33:19)
Right. So, we have a question from a member of the audience, who I think might be based in the Middle East. He's asking about your feelings about the clean meat market or lab grown meat. I know two of the early companies you've invested in are involved in sort of sustainable agriculture. Two of them are our plant-based, healthier eating options. Can you talk a little about that clean meat market and lab grown meat?
Ellie Rubenstein: (33:44)
Yeah, we're not an expert in it. It's still earlier stage. So, I think many of the Food and Ag venture firms are the ones writing those checks. We certainly eye it and we look at it. But from our standpoint, it doesn't meet our investment criteria today, which tends to usually be a company that's profitable, has $10 billion in revenue, positive EBIT, margin, and can scale. On that same panel in the Middle East, I think it was the founder of JUST. I think the cost per chicken nugget at the time was about $1,000. So, it's kind of where the first computers or iPhones were when they were really expensive, but we need more capital to be able to get the cost of production down.
Ellie Rubenstein: (34:23)
So, they'll get there. I would say give it a few more years until the costs come down. Bill Gates and others have done a great service to the food economy by willing to invest from a science standpoint, not just from a return standpoint. So, it really is true in venture capital. But we also know that meat companies willing to invest in disruptive technology, we're grateful for them in the food system. Because in a few years, it really is at scale and it will help feed developing worlds where, frankly, there's not enough protein right now. So, the science is the most fascinating. I think seeing people that want to be food scientists and pivot careers and enter this is really, to me, the most noble calling. It's not just a farmer. I's how do you feed the world using your science background?
John Darsie: (35:09)
Right. Just going back, I know you commented on MycoTechnology a little bit in the conversation about sustainable agriculture. Two of the companies you invested in, MycoTechnology, Nutriati, they're using plant-based sciences to create healthier consumer products. Could you talk a little bit more about what each of those companies is doing and what you think sort of the future holds for plant-based foods?
Ellie Rubenstein: (35:32)
Yeah, MycoTech is near and dear to my heart. It existed before Manna Tree. When I was writing my capstone at Purdue on plant-based proteins and investing in food, we looked at a couple hundred companies. I was trying to prove this out to my own family saying, "I just want a small allocation who invest in food deals. This is my interest area." It was the only one that really, I felt like could meet our criteria. So, we transferred it at cost for my family office. It was one of our first deals, proof of concept. I think it's allowed us to learn and to see what the Big Food wants. Most of the investors are Big Foods. You have General Mills. You have Ajinomoto who's using it as an MSG replacement. You have Kellogg's. They're both investors and customers. It really gave us an eye into what we were seeing.
Ellie Rubenstein: (36:18)
So, what it does is basically, it's using craft beer technology or fermentation. So, anybody ever wants to go right next to the Denver Airport, you can go and see. You can observe what this looks like. It's fermentation tanks to ferment the mushrooms. When we started, I think they were only using three different types of mushrooms. There's upwards of 57 they can do. So, COVID allowed them to pivot a little bit in a good way, because mushrooms are known for immunity and so they're able to get this more international supplement. So, their products today are B2B. So, one of them is PureTaste. The other one's ClearTaste.
Ellie Rubenstein: (36:51)
So, mushroom's naturally lower sugar. So, it's both a dual product and that it's a plant-based product protein and lower sugar. So, it really is good in that the texture is there, the health components are there. It's actually pretty cheap, because it's mushrooms. They're fungus. So, we're really excited about Myco. It really showed us that for us, where we want to play in the plant-base phase is the ingredients phase. Because right now, there's only really one to four ingredients being used in most of these plant-based products, and there could be upwards of 40. So, we're focused on the innovation of that and the technology of the processing, but not changing the actual ingredient.
Ellie Rubenstein: (37:28)
On Nutriati, it's pretty similar, but it's just using chickpeas. What we found is that it can also be in the better for you snack category. I'd say another main differentiator is it's branded. So, when you buy a Biena Chickpea Puff, it does say, "Using Artesa flour," but we're very enthusiastic about that. That's why there's two of these companies in our portfolio. They don't really compete. They have different customer bases. I'd say we are always eyeing the next best superfood as an ingredient.
John Darsie: (37:57)
Alright, so it sounds like we're just sort of scratching the surface of what plant-based foods is ultimately going to look like 10, 20 years from now. Before we let you go, Ellie, and we could talk for hours about this stuff, because you're so passionate and knowledgeable about it. But I want to talk a little bit about your philanthropy work. So, as I mentioned in the open, you had a long list of different philanthropic causes that you support. What are the causes that are most important to you and that you're the most passionate about? Why is philanthropy been such an important thing to you in your life?
Ellie Rubenstein: (38:29)
I was raised with two really philanthropic parents, not in the way of rich people writing checks. I think my grandmother was the original philanthropist. Every mail that comes to her, she would write a $5-check. She was so worried that she might not go to heaven if she didn't write that check. So, when she died, we had like 450 causes. We had to cancel this $5- to $20-checks. So, that's how my dad grew up and my mother is no different. She's like the Mother Teresa. So, I can go hunting with her around any native village in Alaska. They're so grateful for her, for always buying the artwork and showing up with groceries or computers.
Ellie Rubenstein: (39:03)
So, service is really a big part of our mentality. We don't view it as philanthropy. We view it as volunteerism. I think both of my parents always tried to show us that we've had everything. But when your parents every day asked you not what did you just learn in school today, but who did you help, that's really core to us. So, I've kind of really been able to strengthen my philanthropy. I don't really need anything to live. So, I'm focused on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs of food, water and shelter. So, that allows me to put most of my other remaining time and efforts into helping other people. I view it is a bottoms-up approach. If we can invest more in the people that are producing our food, that brings me great pleasure.
Ellie Rubenstein: (39:44)
So, I have a Donor Advised Fund. We are also, I will tell you, getting ready to launch a research arm within our own firm, and we've had some early success. I think that the three co-founding partners, we really view this now as the more you make, the more you get to give. So, I think it's a different mindset. I am religious. I do believe in that principle, the more you give, the more you get. I think it just opens up whole new doors. Well, I have a Donor Advised Fund. It's called Mission: Ingredients. It's been traditionally for the last 10 years really more so focused on Red Cross and military just for my own personal life.
Ellie Rubenstein: (40:18)
But now, what I've been able to do is expand that into supporting different research efforts and combine that with data so that we can actually get better industry knowledge. So, more to come on that. And then I really would say that it's venture philanthropy. I tried to study some of the best models out there of next generation. I would say billionaires that are really struggling with the same issues. How do I make a family legacy that's unique to mine? I think the venture philanthropy model works, doesn't matter if it's jammed together. If you look at the Arnold, venture philanthropy works, because sometimes it's for-profit and sometimes it's nonprofit.
Ellie Rubenstein: (40:51)
I'll give you example, the average fisherman, it costs $250,000 to be able to buy a boat and have a commercial permit. That's a lot of money for a 23-year-old. So, if you can find ways to help them by their quota or support them in other ways, it's more of a venture philanthropy aspect, open new market. So, I'm really focused on the population of farmers, ranchers, fishermen, and the military, and those that we can be able to link the health halo effects with livelihoods.
Ellie Rubenstein: (41:20)
So, as I kind of rebrand my plan for the next 10 years, it's research and data. It's population health, as well as livelihood. Those are the three things that mean a lot to me. I would encourage people to get out there. Volunteer, spend time with people you don't know, because you would be amazed what skill sets it brings back to your own firm for creativity and ideas. When you fundraise for a living, you can almost feel inauthentic when you're just selling food.
Ellie Rubenstein: (41:49)
So, if you can bring stories about how you relate to the people that you're trying to work with, it's not just more authentic, it's credible, it's realistic. So, philanthropy really gives you the tools to actually move your for-profit world forward. That's the one thing I could make everybody realize, get involved, give back. It will give more to you than probably just you are giving to them.
John Darsie: (42:12)
Well, it's fascinating stuff. It's amazing what you've accomplished in 30 young years and the way you've interwoven all of your philanthropic causes with what you're now doing with Manna Tree. So, congratulations on all your success. I'll leave it to Anthony if he has a final word. Anthony, you still there?
Ellie Rubenstein: (42:32)
He's on mute.
Anthony Scaramucci: (42:34)
I'm muted, because I was eating high protein eggs. I want you guys-
Ellie Rubenstein: (42:39)
Do you really? Hold on, is the yolk orange? I might get in trouble for doing this.
John Darsie: (42:42)
You got to get that orange yolk. That's how you know it's real.
Anthony Scaramucci: (42:46)
So, but in any event, I just want to say thank you, Ellie, and continue your great success. Hopefully, as I say to everybody, we can get you to one of our live events. We had you at SALT Abu Dhabi, where you were fantastic. Hopefully, we'll get you to an event in North America before too long once the pandemic ends. Wish you great-
Ellie Rubenstein: (43:06)
Can I visit you in Long Island and we can go hunting again? It's time for you to get that rifle out.
Anthony Scaramucci: (43:11)
You can't really hunt you're on Long Island, but I can tell you.
John Darsie: (43:13)
You got to go the other direction.
Anthony Scaramucci: (43:14)
I could take you to-
John Darsie: (43:15)
We got to come out to Alaska.
Ellie Rubenstein: (43:17)
There you go.
Anthony Scaramucci: (43:17)
You can make it in Northeastern Pennsylvania.
Ellie Rubenstein: (43:20)
Perfect.
Anthony Scaramucci: (43:21)
It's an hour upstate New York by Wyndham where I have a house. You would love it there.
Ellie Rubenstein: (43:24)
That sounds amazing. That sounds amazing. I will make sure to send you some fresh meat and fish as a thank you.
Anthony Scaramucci: (43:29)
If we bring Darsie's grandmother-in-law, okay, she's probably the best shot in the nation. Okay, when I run for president, she's going to be my vice president. She's already committed because she's so hard right. I'm going to need to galvanize the hard right, okay? So, I'm going to need her help. She's somebody I've known since I was the age of 13. Okay, so we'll bring her along with us. How's that?
Ellie Rubenstein: (43:50)
I'm on the Anthony for president ticket too. Really, I mean that.
Anthony Scaramucci: (43:54)
Yeah, of course.
Ellie Rubenstein: (43:54)
What you've done with SALT, getting people together and taking chances on young entrepreneurs like myself, and really giving us a microphone is I'm forever loyal to you. It's incredible. Thank you. I really mean that.
Anthony Scaramucci: (44:07)
The only presidency I'm running for is to be president of your fan club, Ellie. So, thank you for everything. Good luck up there. Enjoy the rest of this time.
Ellie Rubenstein: (44:16)
Thank you, same to you.