The founder of Catapult Commercialization Services, Jamie Valenti-Jordan, joins CEO of VegTech Invest and host Elysabeth Alfano on The Plantbased Business Hour to discuss bringing resiliency to the diversified protein supply chain.
Specifically, they discuss:
- Catapult Commercialization Services and Jamie’s long history in food science and manufacturing.
- What shifts Elysabeth and Jamie see in the sector, both positive and negative?
- Jamie and Elysabeth’s perspective on the slump of the sector: is it the valley of death or rebirth?
- What needs to happen for revitalization?
- Jamie’s predictions for the next 3 years?
Below is a highlight clip and transcription from their long-form conversation.
Podcast link: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/building-a-resilient-food-system-supply-chain-with/id1512473843?i=1000672510116
Elysabeth: I wanted to bring on my guest today, Jamie Valenti-Jordan. He is the founder of Catapult Commercialization Services and I’m glad to have him with me. Jamie, how are you today?
Jamie Valenti-Jordan: Doing great. Doing great. Always happy to be here. Thank you.
Elysabeth: Are you sort of saying bringing classic brands into the year 2025 or anticipating bringing them into 2030 to keep them relevant? Is that right? Is that what’s sort of driving this innovation?
Jamie Valenti-Jordan: Returning them to relevance, especially as our generational shifts take place. We’ve been focused on Millennials for a very long time, but Gen Alpha has purchasing power now and it’s substantial and it grows every year. So what Gen Alpha is interested in is going to become more and more of interest and Gen Z, right? Gen Z is the middle layer.
Gen Alpha is even starting to get purchasing power. Gen Z is very much following a similar trend as where Millennials went, as much as they don’t want to admit it, they are. Gen Alpha is really kind of pushing the bottom half of Gen Z in a different direction which is around a story and the narrative being present in every purchase
Elysabeth: Ah, Gen Alpha is looking for a story in every purchase. I think that’s cool.
Jamie Valenti-Jordan: Yeah.
Elysabeth: I think that’s cool and the marketing around that is just a marketer’s dream. I mean, that’s really fun. So when you say “story,” would this be- and I know this maybe isn’t your forte or where you focus but I love to focus on some of the marketing. So are these data-driven stories or are they inspirational stories? Data-driven being X% less carbon footprint. Inspirational is to get you into your swimsuit.
Jamie Valenti-Jordan: So for sure it’s going to be data-driven, especially the larger the organization is because if it’s just inspirational, it comes off as inauthentic, right? So the data is necessary to be present in that narrative or else it really just doesn’t resonate with the intended targets. Anybody can write an inspirational story on some level, but the larger brands, if they’re going to make this pivot, have to have the data to back it up or it is really going to fall flat.
Elysabeth Alfano is the CEO of VegTech™ Invest, the advisor to the VegTech™ Plant-based Innovation & Climate ETF, EATV. She is also the founder of Plant Powered Consulting
