Ep 48 - Science and genetics...what makes better seeds? An interview w/ Ido Margalit CEO/Co-founder, BetterSeeds

In this episode we go beyond just cannabis & CBD genetics.  A small Israeli based startup, BetterSeeds, is on a mission to create better seeds for all the crops grown worldwide.  Better crop genetics will be the key solving the growing demand for increased production.  

BetterSeeds makes use of genome editing technology (CRISPR-Cas9) in order to produce new varieties, incorporating game changing traits which are not today available across all crops due to the limitations of conventional breeding. One example of this is ketchup. Without one genetic trait that was discovered in tomatoes a few decades ago we wouldn’t have had ketchup.

We interviewed BetterSeeds CEO/Co-founder, Ido Margalit, who helps explain the science behind BetterSeeds. And Ido helps to explain how their technology is also improving the Cannabis & Hemp industry.  Listen to our latest episode.

Connect with BetterSeeds:
https://www.betterseeds.com/#Hero
https://www.linkedin.com/company/betterseeds-ltd/

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Transcript

Ronjini Joshua: 0:11

Hi, this is Ronjini Joshua, I'm the host of the green room podcast. This last week we were at mjbizcon. And we met some amazing guests and heard about some really cool brands that are innovating the cannabis industry and and what's coming next in the new year. Hello, today we're here with Ido Margalit, the CEO of can breed. Thank you for joining us on the podcast. Thank you.

Ido Margalit: 0:35

Glad to be here.

Ronjini Joshua: 0:36

Yeah. And so we're here for mjbizcon. This week, and what is the most exciting thing to you about what's going on this week?

Ido Margalit: 0:44

Well, I would say that this is the first conference in cannabis that we're participating in specifically also in the United States. Okay. I think the most amazing thing is the sheer size of this conference, the amount of people I mean, coming from Israel and also seeing the European operations This is doesn't come anywhere close to that.

Ronjini Joshua: 1:03

Yes. Is this your first time you're, you're exhibiting this year we are expanding? And is this your first time at mjbizcon? Or as your first time exhibiting both both? Okay. Okay. Okay, cool. So I would love to hear a little bit more about yourself and your business and can breed and what you guys are doing at the show what you expect out of it and some exciting things that you expect to come out of cannabis in 2022.

Ido Margalit: 1:28

Yeah, I'd be very happy to tell you everything. Yeah. So maybe a little bit about myself, please. So I'm an agronomic by my education and also have a master's in business. I have 23 years of experience in Israeli life sciences sector, great working for pharmaceutical companies for agricultural companies. Actually, the previous position that I held before founding this company was being the Business Development Manager for Syngenta. Syngenta is the European Monsanto, okay? And at their seeds division, which would lead to the reason why we founded Cambria. Okay. And about five years ago, both me and also the other co founder Dr. Tang Chairman we he was a scientist also at the seeds division in Syngenta, we decided that we want to create our own seeds and genetics company that uses these really innovative and breakthrough technology called CRISPR. I don't know if you heard about this technology. It just won by the way, the 2020 chemistry Nobel Prize, oh wow, this is gonna revolutionize medicine, agriculture as we know it. So we're already eight years ago, we became a acknowledge with this technology. And we said, Okay, we're going to form our own genetics and seeds, company, and we wanted to do new things and develop better agricultural crops. But there was no money. Nobody understood CRISPR means here, after almost a decade after developing it, few people know about this technology. So investors knew nothing. And it was that we want to do CRISPR on tomatoes. And so I said, well, so that interesting, there was no money. And then we looked at cannabis. Now immediately, as seeds, industry people, we understood the two biggest gaps that exist in cannabis. And we said there, we can solve it. And the two biggest gaps is one, it's very expensive to grow, because the genetics do not fit mass scale production. And the other problem is there's no standardization, there's no uniformity and consistency. So the two solutions are stable seeds and enhancing those seeds with agronomic traits that will enable very efficient and and very high quality material.

Ronjini Joshua: 3:30

Yeah, so I think what I'm hearing a lot this year, and just seeing mjbizcon is a lot of people are focusing on the seeds, because that's kind of the future of cannabis is how are we going to scale the production of cannabis? And how are you going to get the same plants in different places? And and and all that. So how is that incorporated into your business? And, you know, what are you looking at as the trends of what you're doing with CRISPR.

Ido Margalit: 3:57

So I think the biggest solution and the most game changing solution is actually bringing those seats when you do not need to do any more cloning, no more clones, once you have the stable seats, no more tissue culture cloning, no more mother vegetative from other plants, cloning, normal cloning, you buy a bag of seeds, 10,000 seeds, 100,000 seeds, 1 million seeds, and you put all of them in the in the greenhouse and you get the identical plants. So it saves time, it saves labor. And after that you get the consistency and the uniformity. This is the biggest biggest solution. But as I said, it's not enough because still there's a lot of problems. I mean agricultural crop, you have a lot of hardships, you have Diseases Attacking it, you have to adapt the structure of the cannabis plant mean, the soy and the tomatoes we consume today. We're actually domesticated for decades, if not for centuries to fit, intensive agriculture outputs and halibuts was not so only using CRISPR. Can you actually domesticate the cannabis plant and fit it into intensive agricultural farms within a very short time? We don't have the two three decades wait for conventional breeding to get to that we need to do that within the next five years, and only CRISPR can do that solution. Wow.

Ronjini Joshua: 5:09

So what do you see as the biggest opportunity with that then, obviously, mass scale production, but coming from Israel and coming into the US market, how are you guys kind of working through the challenges of the US market.

Ido Margalit: 5:24

So I think that we sold one big challenge very easily because we are both in the hemp and also in the, in the medical and recreational segment. So the medical recreational segment, we sold the situation in the US very simple. We're not in there. Until you solve it federally, we're not touching any kind of base in the in the medical and recreational so that we're only focused on the hemp side in the United States. And I think that as I said, we should we bring this uniform seats when you buy 1 million seeds from us is going to be identical consistency and standardization. But then the growth here face a lot of other problems they face also the high THC. So with crisper, you can have no THC, THC free plants. There's another downside to growing hemp because it's an outdoor production mainly, at least if you want to have your production costs go really down, you can't do it in the greenhouse, then you have a weeds that the take over the growth and they you have 10 to 15% loss of duty weeds. So we have a herbicide resistant hemp, and also disease resistant, etc, etc, we have these economical trade platform that solves basically, I would say most of the challenges of growing hemp in the United States. So you can do effectively with high quality.

Ronjini Joshua: 6:36

So tell us a little bit about your team because it sounds like you have a very scientific focus team. So tell us a little bit about how it what you guys are doing as far as the research and the development within the company.

Ido Margalit: 6:48

I would say that we are much more a biotech company, an agriculture company. So we have over 20 Scientists working at the company. Most of them are molecular biologists. It's a fancy name for geneticists. So what we basically do we look at the different challenges that the growers face, we'll look at the traits that will solve those different challenges. Our scientists look at the genes that once you edit them, you get those traits and then we design the CRISPR that will actually edit the gene to get the positive trade out of the plants. So this is what we do. So we are basically a genetic biotech company that's focused mainly in cannabis at this point of time. By the way, we're not only doing cannabis, but we started cannabis. We're focused on cannabis. We're doing many other crops as well.

Ronjini Joshua: 7:34

Okay, so your group crop scientists, yeah. All crops. Okay. Land scientists, plant scientists, though. Okay. Well, but so what you do with CRISPR can apply to any kind of plant or agriculture.

Ido Margalit: 7:45

It does. And it's exactly what we do. We're also in soy, we're also in tomatoes, where most of the cash crops for agriculture, but we began in cannabis, our journey as I said, our journey actually began cannabis because there was money in cannabis. Right. But now, everybody well, at least in my in my segment, now people know that CRISPR and people acknowledge the fact that all agricultural crops need to be enhanced, and only CRISPR will bring the solution for the for the for the future of agriculture, and feed the world. So now it's much easier for us to get the money to do other crops as well.

Ronjini Joshua: 8:18

What kind of companies do you guys partner with? Well, we

Ido Margalit: 8:22

partner both with multinational seeds, companies, we partner also with a couple of cannabis companies. And of course, we partner with a lot of research institutes. But but as I said, since we're not only cannabis when we partner with those guys, it's not just for cannabis. It's for a lot of other things. But we are looking very actively to partner with young plant nurseries, seedling nurseries, and also for cannabis. Because we see the evolution of the cannabis industry. So you have the plant and the seeds business. The next in the in the supply chain are actually the nurseries. Yeah, because in agriculture, the farmers, let's say vegetables, which is a high value crop roaming greenhouses, just like canavese the farmers they don't buy the seeds from the seed companies they buy young plant planners. Yeah, actually our customers are not grows themselves. They are the plant nurseries. So we've come here to actually look for customers because we're starting to sell in 2022. So we're talking to the farmers and to the growers, because they're much more than that than they are in nurseries, but we're also looking for the nursery.

Ronjini Joshua: 9:26

Do you imagine that you know in the future when it is legal here in the United States and wherever else it's going to be legal. Do you imagine there'll be cannabis nurseries

Ido Margalit: 9:35

of course yeah, in Israel, there's already starting to be a young plant nurseries for cannabis. Okay, there's very few in the United States and it's very few in Canada, but at least I can tell you what they told us in Israel. So there's young plant nurseries that are not doing cannabis, but they have the know how and the resources to add cannabis and they said, We're waiting for stable seats. There's no reason for us to do any germination of season to end to sell young planetaries if there's no stable seats, Now you've come now we are entering also the cannabis industry.

Ronjini Joshua: 10:03

So that is a challenge I've heard of and don't obvious I'm not a farmer or grower. So I don't know much about it. But is that a big issue for the cannabis industry where they're, you know, growing certain plants, but not all of them are producing what they need? Is it? What is the what is the loss amount when you do a crop? Typically,

Ido Margalit: 10:25

what exactly do you mean from the amount of the cannabinoids,

Ronjini Joshua: 10:28

you mentioned it? Yeah, you were mentioning that like, you know, the germination doesn't kind of fully, fully mature. So do all the seeds because the seeds are not the same? Or because they're not uniform? Are you seeing a lot of drop off of plants that they can't people can't use?

Ido Margalit: 10:46

Well, in our products or from the other products in the industry. So I think we met already potential clients in the in the days that we've come before the conference. And they said, You guys have a lot of challenges. You don't need to market educate the people that you must need seeds to replace cloning, you're actually challenge is all the previous companies that came and said that they're doing exactly what you're doing. And they didn't have it. So they had low germination rates, they do not have the consistency, the stability and the uniformity. So the challenge is that proving that we're not doing the same BS as the other guys before us. That is the biggest challenge. And we're not basing we actually have 1%, stable genetics, we're actually bringing the practices of the conventional seeds business. This is the first time we've broken all the glass ceilings that in the past decades existed in this industry. And I hope that our potential customers will trust us and understand that we're not doing the BS that the guys before us have done.

Ronjini Joshua: 11:45

So you guys are coming from Israel. Can you tell me a little bit more about your like kind of how you guys got started? How did cambrie get started in the first place?

Ido Margalit: 11:52

So as I mentioned, a US being for the seeds industry. And it was very easy for us to actually understand those gaps. Okay, so we immediately understood any agricultural crop, and cannabis is just another crop crop. By default, you have to grow it from seed doing a propagation from vegetative propagation. You only do that if the plant does not know how to propagate itself from seeds. So bananas, strawberries, even potatoes until recently, you did vegetative cloning, vegetative reproduction of it. And can I be, well, everybody knows the seeds, it doesn't have to produce itself. But it's not enough just to use the seed as nature has done it because it's not stable. When you take a seat for one plant or the day you get 100 seeds for one plant, all those 100 seeds are genetically different from each other. You need to invest a lot of science. That's why we're we're already almost five years existing. And people have asked me already in the conference today. So what is your revenue? And I say, I might say even one very proudly, one big fat zero, because five years huge amounts of investment. This is science. It takes a long time. And if people believe Oh yeah, I'm gonna do the same, you know, within two or three cycles, six to eight months are going to have the same thing as you had, and I'm going to sell it. No, it takes five years to get to the point that we are that is why we actually do have the stable genetics. Yeah. And this is the route that we did. We come from the conventional seeds business, we're taking the practices, and for the first time we're inputting them into cannabis, and I think is the first stepping stone of the cannabis industry to mature and become a standard diseased industry.

Ronjini Joshua: 13:30

Yeah, and that's another problem that, you know, another problem people are facing is standardization and, and getting quality products that are streamlined, you know, I think this kind of seed genetics probably really helps mass produce this at a scalable kind of rate.

Ido Margalit: 13:46

Exactly. Yeah. That is a joke in Hebrew that I can translate, I believe to English, but it's like this, the cannabis industry over the world is like building a penthouse on a high rise building, but building it from the top down, right, okay. And there's no foundation and the foundation this business is genetics. So if there's no stable genetics, you will never have this standardization, you will never be able to go and buy at the store the same time you received a very good vibe, a very good feeling. You enjoy the product and you go again, I mean, when I buy a Coke, I expect my coke in Israel in the US in England, wherever to be the same. You can't get that and Canalis only when you get to the stable genetics like we have will you get to that point for both recreational and of course medical, you will get the same type of reproducibility and standardization.

Ben Michaels: 14:30

Have you found that you've been able to you know, because like there's the strands that are very popular and across the board and then there's like more of the boutique brands that are really trying to get complex you know, terpenes and high THC when you are these seeds you know that you're making right now are you trying to accomplish all of that you're trying to get high THC and complex terpenes with with that stability, are you finding that you have to sacrifice one or the other for that consistency.

Ido Margalit: 14:59

We can look cover the entire spectrum of the market, it's impossible, as our strategy is to have a few dozen varieties that we select Apple according to two criteria. I mean, you have people here growing the same variety in the winter, in the summer in the autumn growing in Washington growing in California, it doesn't matter that agricultural crops, you have to have a specific variety for specific season in a specific spot. So already by default, we understand that using just one variety, it doesn't fit. It doesn't

Ronjini Joshua: 15:27

work like that, like fruits and vegetables. They're exactly there during certain times of the year. Exactly.

Ido Margalit: 15:31

So we we are, we're going to have a product profile of a few dozen varieties that are going to be selected according to plant performance. This grows well in the winter, this grows well in the summer, okay. And from those that fit the summer, winter, wherever indoor outdoor that we have also selection according to the contaminant concentration, this is high THC, low CBD high CBD this is even, et cetera, et cetera. So we will have a catalog that hopefully covers this spectrum, will it fit? Specifically I want this specific Can I get a cannabinoid? Nothing CBD or THC, whatever, or this specific terpene? Maybe not. But if you want the uniformity and the standardization, and you're willing to let go of that specific teeny, weeny little thing, then I'm your guy.

Ronjini Joshua: 16:16

Yeah, I think I think maybe not so much for the boutiques, but for the MSOs that are going to be doing national production of big, big brands that are going to be doing that they're going to be looking for, you know, your kind of solution. But there's, that's, that's kind of how the market is today, right? You've got boutique people like let's, you know, we've been talking a lot about the comparisons between wine and beer, and you've got the craft wine, and then you've got or the craft beer, and then you've got like the large, you know, mass produced, like big brands that people like. So I think that kind of translates

Ido Margalit: 16:49

complete with you. And I like always to bring a metaphor from the conventional agriculture business. Yeah. So from our business, we have the organics guys, right, right. It's a niche market. So they're about three to 4%, the total market so they won't buy the conventional seeds. They want to own organic seeds from their own organic varieties. So they won't go to the Monsanto to the pioneers of those large, multinational companies. So I cater the 95 96% of the market. So the four or 5% niche to take. So probably I can give a solution to them. Maybe they wanted to invest and to pay me to develop their genetics, they will be fit for growing from stable seeds. Maybe that's assumption solution. But I aim for the 95% of the market, right for the nation, boutique market.

Ronjini Joshua: 17:34

Yeah. Well, I mean, there has to be a little bit of everything, right? No, absolutely. There will be. Yeah, a little bit of everything available. That's exciting. I mean, it's really interesting to see it be the industry be at the stage and time and we're meeting a lot of people that are really just getting into the ground floor of what's happening with cannabis and how it's going to be blowing up in the next few years. As, especially here as it becomes legalized, it's going to be kind of like a, it's going to be something to look at, you know, something to watch and see. What are you most excited about? I mean, you have a lot of really cool technology behind what you're doing. What are you most excited about?

Ido Margalit: 18:14

I would say I'm most excited about being the groundbreaking company. Yeah, I have to say that. I mean, that we've faced so many backlashes of the past five years, people have been telling us and I still receive emails for massive growth in the United States saying that you cannot get to stable seats. you're bullshitting and this is something possible. This is so I'm so I'm breaking as I said, glass ceilings, I'm changing concepts. And also being the first company to actually taking this CRISPR technology and being able to apply it in cannabis where so many other people have failed. You have these large growers, a companies in Canada, they failed, you know, the canopy that Tiller that they failed, and me as a small Israeli company, like like a small commander unit, with limited resources of limited people were actually managed to solve all those problems that bigger, stronger and more veteran people in in the cannabis industry than us they couldn't solve it. This is what I'm really most excited about.

Ben Michaels: 19:16

So not to take a step back from what you were excited about, but I find it very interesting that you're mainly the big focus right now is the hemp and hemp market. So I'm just curious so like it's some of the things like trying to get you know, no THC with the most amount of CBD or literally strengthening you know, the cell walls of the plant, you know, so it's, you know, whatever that hemp depending on what that hemp is going to be used for. Do you have some of that same variety with you know, him specific CRISPR technology.

Ido Margalit: 19:50

So this is exactly what we're doing. And by the way, using this gene editing this CRISPR technology, I would say the sky's the limit in in regard to what you can do to the canavese planet hemp plant wellness exam is probably for me hemp is also cannabis, of course, it's the sky's the limit that anything is possible from playing with all the different cannabinoids from, as you said, changing the plant architecture, I can tell you that one of the of the traits that we're working on, not only does it make the plant autoflowering and by the way autoflowering, we're not using a ruderalis, you can play with a gene that actually turns off and on the plant need to look at the amount of daylight so you don't get the genetic drift or with violence or the crapping and people cross Hamburg valleys, you get a lot of crap from from ruderalis in this instance, you take the hemp plant itself and you edit the gene, there's no anything that comes from the root of it. So you get a very good, very strong very vigorous hemp plant. And not only that this specific gene also makes the flowers appear almost simultaneously. So instead of having you can say like floors, then all the flowers more or less appeared some fancy which makes it much more fitting for mechanical harvesting. Oh

Ben Michaels: 20:57

wow.

Ido Margalit: 20:58

So you reduce the time you make the flowers appear simultaneously and you can then mechanically harvested like in cotton like in soy like in all the other our culture open field crops.

Ben Michaels: 21:08

Yeah, no, that's such a such a pain and especially for the ones that do it by hand and having everybody do it because it's, you know, the the flowers growing everywhere in different directions. There's no way to streamline it. That's incredible.

Ronjini Joshua: 21:18

Yeah. Do you think that, um, you know, this kind of cannabis revolution? Do you think it's opening up opportunities for agricultural innovation, just in general that like, cuz I, I mean, we we worked with companies before that are in the agriculture space, but it seems like innovation is slow to uptick there. Because it's such a old legacy market. Do you think this is kind of helping infuse a bit of innovation to their?

Ido Margalit: 21:47

Well, at least in my company? Yes. Yes. We wouldn't have existed. So as far as my own personal perspective, that is correct. Maybe also, there's a lot of shift is, you know, to indoor, vertical growing vegetables. And I believe that a lot of the solutions that were developed in the past five, six years can I be to actually utilize in that. So as far as a those innovations in cannabis, then yes, I believe that actually can be should take much more from the agriculture industry, rather than than the agriculture industry taking from cannabis. But you will have eventually some sort of a synergy.

Ronjini Joshua: 22:22

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So what do you guys see as far as like, kind of your next five to 10 years, obviously, coming into the US market at some point, but for cannabis, and not just him? But what do you see is like kind of the big industry trends that are going to be happening? Wow,

Ido Margalit: 22:41

I have to say, and as honestly as possible, I catered the growers, I don't set trends of God, or we want these types of flowers, we want that type of collaborator, I don't set the trends, I just bring the solution for the growers that fit the trends of the market. So I don't assume to have any, any forecasting are where they're going. What I can tell you is that at least with us, whatever the market is going, we're going to bring the standardization and uniformity that it needs.

Ronjini Joshua: 23:10

Yeah, and the research, and the research and the research and science. Well, this is awesome. Anything we didn't get to talk about, that you are excited about.

Ido Margalit: 23:20

I think we covered we

Ronjini Joshua: 23:21

covered a lot. Yeah, we covered a lot. Well, thank you so much, everyone. Yeah, please, please.

Ben Michaels: 23:26

Um, so I'm really curious. Because like, I know, like, Colorado specifically has recently changed the way that they go, you know, seed, you know, to flower, and tracking that between medical and recreational. And since, you know, you're kind of approaching it of like, you know, the entire US, right, like any legal state, do you have you found anything so far of like, you know, are more medical people, you know, wanting your help, or, or more, you know, recreational people? Or they, cuz I think every state's like a little different between now they have the track that you know, so have you ran into any issues with, you know, trying to keep that legal and good.

Ido Margalit: 24:03

I received already in the conference, some questions like that, and as I indicated, we're not medical recreational in the United States. So we're not actually faced with it doesn't apply for him. He does apply. He's they're

Ronjini Joshua: 24:13

taking the smarter approach. They're waiting till all this stuff has been Yes, you know, cemented,

Ido Margalit: 24:19

but they have a very good reply. Technically, we have the solution, because we have genetic markers. The way that enabled us to actually bring the stable cannabis is that we invested a lot of money in genetic markers. Oh, and with those genetic markers, you can we can actually track our genetics. So if you buy buy seed from us, let's say that we are already in the medical or recreational market in here in the US, you buy the sea from us, you propagate the plant, you get the flower, I can test the flower, see the genetics using my genetic markers and economic it's mine are not mine. So the technical solution we already have it do a uplights not not currently,

Ben Michaels: 24:56

yet. Not yet. Not yet. Yeah, TBD. Yes. cuz

Ronjini Joshua: 25:01

I said, Well, you know, it's been fantastic talking to you. I hope you have an awesome show and hopefully we can see you guys in the cannabis market very soon. You will. Yeah. And hear more about CRISPR also.

Ido Margalit: 25:15

Yes, very exciting. Thanks. Thank you for having me. Thank

Ronjini Joshua: 25:18

you. Thank you. The Green Room podcast is brought to life by green seed PR, cannabis green tech focus PR agency, and a dedicated production team of editors mixers and show Booker's. A huge thank you to the vessel team for providing their studio for our recording. Don't forget to subscribe and share the greenroom podcast with friends, colleagues, and family. That way you'll never miss an episode and we can keep the lights on. If you're feeling extra generous. Please leave us a review on your favorite podcast listening platform. You can also find us on Instagram at Green DPR and did live video versions of all of our podcasts on YouTube. Would you like to be on the guests on the show? Or do you have a great guest referral? Awesome. Submit your guests at Green CPR comm slash the hyphen green hyphen room. Thanks for listening and be well