Talking Biotech Podcast Episode 401
Dr. Jeff Touchman, Green Venus



Kevin Folta: [00:00:00] Hi everybody, and welcome to this week's Talking Biotech podcast by 

Colabra. Now here at the Talking Biotech podcast, we have over 400. Well, we have exactly 400 episodes of discussion about technology to assist in food security, to cure most insidious diseases and provide solutions that can mitigate environmental impacts of human activity.

That's all good stuff. Now, these are pressing issues of our time. Today, episode 4 0 1 firmly falls into the arena of champagne problems. So let's get that out of the way here. Now, I love making guacamole. The big downside is that if you're going to cut up all the ingredients and take the time to do it, you gotta go big.

Which leaves you with another first world problem is how do you eat a half gallon of guac? And, and that's the point. You know, that it's going to remain a nice, funky green color for a while, but then it will slowly [00:01:00] sesse into a weird, muddy brown sludge in just a few hours, and there's not enough limes in China to stop that from happening.

So eight years ago, almost to this day, I interviewed the inventor of the non browning apple the arctic apple. And the promise was, is that this fruit would turn brown slower, adding value to pro processed apple products. The same concept was at the root of the non browning potato, where 25% of spuds are lost to unattractive lesions, and the apple and the potato were achieved through biotechnology.

Pretty cool. But the whole non browning story really starts with Bruce's sport. And Bruce's sport was an oddball mutant sprout off of a saltana grapevine. And it was discovered in an, in a, in a vineyard in 1962 and gave rise to golden raisins. And it's a non browning or slow browning. These traits are really important for horticulture because.

They're associated with keeping [00:02:00] food attractive longer and, and, and, and just because it turns a little brown doesn't mean it's bad. It just makes it unattractive. So food waste is really an important issue here. And so back to avocados. Those of us that watched the apple and potato work, we sat around and scratched our heads and wondered why the engineering feat didn't translate to the most important browning afflicted crop products.

That's avocados and bananas. And I think probably just about every scientist in biotech had some secret cockamamie scheme to do it. Like, and we all thought this was the holy grail here. You know, if someone can do it, but figured it's somebody else's problem, you know, by the time I get going on it, it'll be done.

So imagine my excitement last week when I read about the amazing breakthrough that will forever change my guacamole habit, and more importantly, support an agricultural industry. To limit food waste, increase the availability of a fruit loaded with healthy, complex oils. [00:03:00] And today our guest is Dr. Jeff Touchman

he's the Vice President of Research and Operations at Green Venus. Welcome to the 

Jeff Touchman: podcast, Jeff. Thank you, Kevin. It's a pleasure to be here today. Yeah, I think this 

Kevin Folta: is totally cool. So you know, green Venus, I hate to say it, it wasn't necessarily on my radar before. I read the recent news articles, and I really help think if we understand Green Venus's mission, it'll help us understand the product a little bit better.

So could you tell me a little bit about the company and what you do? 

Jeff Touchman: Yeah, yeah. Green Venus was established in 2020, and we're a, we're an agricultural biotechnology company right here in Davis, California. So this is in California, central Valley, where a great deal of the country's vegetables and fruits and, and nuts are produced.

And, and we have a mission of creating fruits and vegetables that. That are more sustainable, but most importantly, the, that people enjoy. And we, and we do this using new plant breeding innovations that bring products to market much quicker than traditional and [00:04:00] conventional breeding methods. But importantly, you know, our mission is to keep the consumer in mind as we work on, on these plants.

Very 

Kevin Folta: good. And the big news this week that caught my eye, Was the development of what might be a non browning or maybe limited browning avocado. And anyone that loves avocados knows, you know, why this is important, but maybe somebody out there is in an avocado free zone. You know, places where they don't grow these or consume them.

So why is a non browning avocado matter? 

Jeff Touchman: Yeah, that, that's a great question. You know, the, the world is really starting to, to pay attention to avocados, and right now it's one of the fastest growing fruits in the world. And and so it, it's, it's catching a lot of attention. It's being used in more and more cuisines, but.

Anyone who's ever had an avocado or purchased them from the store know that, that they, they come with some drawbacks. And, and the number one consumer complaint with avocados is that their, their shelf life is, is short. That is, [00:05:00] they, they brown fairly quickly. Sometimes within minutes. You can put 'em out at a party and in an hour or two later you have to take 'em out right.

Because of their browning. So, so it's a, it's a, it's a real issue. And it's, it, it's involved in consumer liking, of course. I think it limits its appeal. And it also limits it has limitations to, to using avocado because of, of, of its shelf life within the supply chain as well. Oh, very good. And, 

Kevin Folta: and what's really interesting about avocados, I do a little work with avocados, is that they really start that ripening process once they're picked.

So it's really cool for a small farm because, like we have, because we can grow avocados and pick a dozen for the market and then still leave a dozen on the tree, that'll be good next week. Mm-hmm. So this process has a lot of nuances in avocado, but how much. Avocado really goes to waste. Is there any idea on that?

Jeff Touchman: Well, we, we can extrapolate. I think you know, it's generally thought that in general fruit browning is a problem and across all fruits browning and, and waste. [00:06:00] Because of that it can be upwards of 40 to 50% of fruit that's discarded because of this discoloration. And so when you think of a fruit like avocado, which, which is probably one of the, the, the fruits most impacted by this type of a phenotype.

It, it could be upwards of maybe 50, 60%. We don't know yet for sure, but, but it's going to be at least that significant. Wow. Yeah. 

Kevin Folta: And is the New avocado. That's Putatively coming along here that's produced with the new breeding techniques. Is that really designed for the fresh market consumer or really for the processing market?

Jeff Touchman: You know, I, I think it's gonna be a blockbuster in both. You know, I, I mean, I, I, a lot of people maybe have had the, I have in California the experience of going and, and. And buying some packaged guacamole, maybe in a deli section of your grocery store and taking it home and using it and just not really tasting, you know the, the guacamole like it would, like, it would taste as if you made it yourself [00:07:00] fresh.

And so, so in food service in particular a non browning avocado, I, I think is will, will allow Producers of, of things like guacamole to get away from, from technologies like acidification and and suppressing the enzyme things that really kind of affect the quality and the flavor of the product.

And, and, and, and produce something that's just fresher tasting. So, so food service is definitely a place where we see, and restaurants where, where this, an browning technology is going to be a boon. You know, who wouldn't love to have an avocado that you can bring home and slice, eat half of it, and put it away for another week, and then eat the other half?

You know, right now you just can't do that. And so, so I think it, I think it's gonna have a, a big impact both in, in, in the processing market as well as the fresh market. 

Kevin Folta: So when we talk about limiting browning, what is the process at the cellular level that's been disrupted? 

Jeff Touchman: Right, so, so we, we've accomplished [00:08:00] this non browning by, by.

Knocking out or, or silencing. One, one single gene in avocado that's called polyphenol oxidase, and we'll just call that PPO for short. This, this enzyme is, is not new to science. This has been known for a long time as, as the enzyme that causes browning and fruits and, and, and so a non browning avocado wouldn't even be the, the first produce that.

Has been engineered to reduce browning through the, the knockout of this gene. So we have non browning potato, we have non browning mushrooms. Green Venus has produced a non browning romaine back in 2019, and there's a non browning apple. All of these have targeted the activity of these PPO genes, and so this, this enzyme.

We'll take natural phenolics in the plant and in combination with oxygen, turn them into these compounds called quinones, which, you know, gradually will, [00:09:00] will turn into melanin. And, and we all know that melanins are, are what causes this, this browning color. So, so PPOs have been known for a long time to be the responsible enzymes for, for the browning reaction in cut vegetables and fruits.

So that was our target. Oh, very cool. 

Kevin Folta: So, but ripening in avocados, ppo activity and the browning that occurs. That's really just one aspect of this whole process. And in, when you eliminate ppo, do you have other changes, say in texture or oil content, maybe the way it tastes or smells? Anything else that you notice is 

Jeff Touchman: affected?

We're, we are not sure yet, cuz we haven't studied it, but we, we, we have some indications of what might happen based on these other fruits and vegetables where they've, where they've disrupted the, the PPO gene. And so let's take the apple for instance there's a. OK, Okanagan Specialty fruits in Canada has produced a, a product called the Arctic apple that has silenced[00:10:00] the PPO gene.

There are orchards now big orchards in, in Canada and Washington state that are, that are growing these arctic apples and. And, and they, and I've had these apples. You can buy them off of the Amazon marketplace now in bags. It's an excellent tasting apple and I detect no difference in texture, in, in, in flavor.

You know, they, it'll just non brown. Now if you leave them out on a plate, they, they may start to desiccate and right, like any fruit would. And so that would change your. Your texture at all, but texture we're not anticipating. And we, we think the story is the same with other fruits and vegetables where PPO has been disrupted, including our non browning, romaine.

We're not expecting any change in texture or taste except in, in maybe in a positive sense. And so with our non Browning romaine product that we've produced here at Green Venus, we've actually Detected an increase in antioxidants, which antioxidants are lic compounds. And so PPO will break these down.

So when you disrupt ppo, you're [00:11:00] actually inhibiting the, the degradation of these antioxidants and, and the product. And so they're more of 'em around when you eat them. And, and that could also improve labor. So, so and so. In fact, I think it could go the other way Kevin. And so silencing PPO could actually increase our flavor a.

Kevin Folta: Yeah, yeah. Story to jump the gun there a little bit. I, I, I think this, this all changed for me because the picture that was circulating on Twitter showed an avocado you know, cut open and nice and green and I thought, ah, must be done. Yeah. And really, so where is it exactly in the process? 

Jeff Touchman: When we announced this our, our breakthrough last week, we, we have plants trees I guess you could call them.

We call them plantlets, but they're about six or seven inches tall right now. But we have now confirmed that, you know, the p p O gene has been disrupted and, and, and the genetic changes are there. Like we wanted, and these plantlets are vigorous. They're rooting, they're growing very strong, producing lots of leaves.

We'll be moving the, [00:12:00] the soil within, within days now. And so, so these are very young trees. We, we have not produced fruit yet. So that will be the biggest test of, of non browning, of course. But by all indications, by all the science we know about P P O and its activity and, and other fruits and vegetables that this will be a non browning avocado.

So we're really excited about it and we wanted to get the word out. 

Kevin Folta: Yeah. Very good. And, and how challenging is it to transform avocado? Like, you know, getting a foreign gene in the, some plants like tobacco or petunia, you look at it funny and it goes in, but some of 'em are really challenging and as I understand, avocado is one tough cookie.

Jeff Touchman: You know, it, it is and, and we are so grateful to to, to our financial backers that have sticked away with us. This was, this was, this has been a six year journey working on, on avocado and get it, getting it to transform. And you're exactly right. The, the obstacle to creating a non-running avocado has really been, The, the science of tissue culture and, and, and transformation that is [00:13:00] getting, getting the, you know, getting the, the, the editing machinery into the cell and, and it is required and, and, you know, the, the side of the road is littered with researchers that just have given up.

But, but we've stuck with it and and, and, and, and the key was, was really to produce. Avocado cells. So we, so we used a technology called Protoplasts, and that is you're taking an adult cell cell of, of avocado and you're, you're stripping the cell wall off, off of it. And then, and then you're transforming it, you know, you're get, you're getting the, the, the, we can talk about this later, but the, the editing machinery inside the cell to make the very specific delicate changes to the genome that will knock out the gene and nothing else, and then coax that cell.

To regenerate to, to. A fully realized avocado tree. And so, so that developmental process is the challenge. And, and we went through [00:14:00] well, like I said, it took six years and, and countless variations of different. Medias that include nutrients and plant growth factors and getting that combination exactly right.

You know, cycles of light and dark and temperature. All of these things went into to, to coax these cells, to regenerate into plants, and we finally landed on that recipe. Yeah. 

Kevin Folta: And just to fill it in for folks who are from animal systems or bacterial systems, others who have these kinds of background doing plant tissue culture is really this process of taking a plant cell and exploiting what's called TODA potency.

It's the ability to take a plant cell and have it redifferentiate into an entire plant. So when you cut the basil plant and you stick it in a glass of water and those cells on the end of a stem arise as roots rather than leaves. It, it's a, a really cool property plant cells have. So if you have one cell and you can create the edit of interest, you can.

If you have the. Means, as has been discovered here, you can now turn that one cell [00:15:00] into a little clump of cells and ultimately into a whole new plant that is a clone of that first cell. So that's why this works. And let's talk about the technology. So you said this is a gene edited thing. So was this done with a kind of the CRISPR Cas nine system where you selectively edited P p o?

So it, it's not a transgenic, right? Or, or is it? 

Jeff Touchman: No. That's right. Yep. We used CRISPR Cas nine, which I'm, which I'm sure your audience has probably heard about before on your program. And, and importantly though you know, it, it, it, this is a non, you're right, it's a nont transgenic process. We, we call the process DNA free, so we were able to, To put the, the CRISPR machinery, which is RNA based as, you know into the cell without, without using a, a dna vector, so to speak, that that would have to be sort of, you know, removed or bred out later.

That, that's to, that's a little bit of an intractable problem in fruit trees because you, it's difficult to make crosses and it takes decades, right? So, so it was very important that this [00:16:00] was a. DNA free process. So crisp machine machinery goes in, edits are made, and then that CRISPR machinery is just degraded within the cell and it just disappears, and so weren't.

And that's, that's the technology that we used. 

Kevin Folta: No, that's perfect. And so why do you think it took so long? So we, we had apples and potatoes. Those have been done, those boxes checked. Yet the two most important crops for this to be accomplished in would be bananas and avocados. So why did it take so long to get to those too?

Is it really just a transformation question? 

Jeff Touchman: You know, I think so. There's also a, a trepidation, I think, to, to, to work in trees. You know, from a, from a business perspective, you know, you're looking at, at, at long product development times, you know, and in today's funding I don't wanna get too much into the business side of this, but, you know, in today's funding type environments, you know, investors like fast returns.

And so there's been a lot of work in vegetables and things that can be come to market. Quickly, and, and we're in that space as well. But tr [00:17:00] trees is an investment. And even academically, trees are an investment, right? These are you know, to, to coax a graduate student into working on a tree with this long developmental time, you may not see the results in, in your time at the university, right?

So, so, so. So I think it, it really takes some fortitude to kind of attack a problem like this. And so that, that's part of it. But you know, the, the space is certainly heating up. I know that we have competitors also working in avocado and some, some very, very talented researchers and, and, and other, and other companies and even institutions that are working in this space.

And so, so I, I think this area will, will pick up. But I think that that, I mean, as far as I know that's, that's the question. I mean, I think that said before, and I certainly have too, Boy, non browning is such an obvious target. Yeah. You know, in, in, in, in avocado and banana because it's, it's two of the things that all of us as consumers have, has have experienced the downsides of.

Yeah. And there's 

Kevin Folta: not a plant molecular biologist out there that hasn't stared at the ceiling, counting dollar signs [00:18:00] thinking if I can do this. So we're talking with Dr. Jeff. He's the Vice President of research and Operations at Green Venus, and this is collabs talking biotech. Podcast and we'll be back in just a moment.

And now we're back on Collibra's Talking Biotech podcast, and we're speaking with Dr. Jeff Achman. He's the Vice President for research and Operations at Green Venus, and they've come up with the first trees that we are aware that have the non browning trait engineered into avocado. A Fruit that desperately needs the non browning traits.

So this is fantastic stuff. But the big question is, is that there are many kinds of things that are avocados. If you discover or you study the diversity of this crop, there're, you know, from the West Indies types to the Guatemalan that are Mexican varieties. So many, but the industry standard is this, has avocado.

And was your non browning avocado[00:19:00] derived from Hass or was it some 

Jeff Touchman: other cultivar? It's an interesting question. When we, when we got started, of course, we, our, our goal is to work in has, because as, as you correctly mentioned, you know, ha has, represents about estimates are that it, it represents about 80% of, of Haas of avocados that are consumed globally.

So, so it's certainly the, the gorilla in the room our experience and others, I should say, is that, It's also the most difficult of all of the cultivars of avocado to work with. It just didn't wanna perform in, in tissue culture. So, so in fact, our first avocado that we've edited for, for the non browning trait that will come out of the gates is in a variety that's called bacon.

Which was, was found on someone's property in Buena Vista, California back in the late 1940s. The, the owner was James Bacon, so the, the variety is actually named after him. And before has came along. Bacon, avocado, at least in California, was the primary. Cultivated avocado that that [00:20:00] was available.

So, so it's a, it's a, it's a green skinned variety. The skin is a little bit thinner than has avocado. And it's generally, people describe it as having a slightly milder taste than avocado. So that, that, than, I'm sorry. Slightly milder than has it has, has a slightly higher oil content, and that gives, its, its, its traditional, you know, it's creamy, almost buttery type of a flavor.

So, but, but in taste tests, bacon, bacon scores very, very high. Some people even prefer it. So, so that will be the first one, but, but ha is right on its heels. And so we've made the breakthrough in Ha as well. And the the, the, the editing is, is in progress right now for Haas and several other commercial varieties.

Like, it's like Zano. We're working on a variety called Lula, which is it's a, a fairly cold, tolerant variety that I think has grown in Florida. And we have several others in, in, in the Wings as well. There's a really nice variety that's I think in the pedigree of has, it's called gem. It just came, came off [00:21:00] of its patent.

It was a, a really beautiful variety that was developed at the University of California and Riverside. And so that's something we're, we're interested in looking at as well. Yeah. 

Kevin Folta: Super cool. I I love that avocado's getting a little bit of a resurgence. Mm-hmm. Not just in that more people are eating half avocados, which, which also was a chance tree that showed up in someone's yard.

That was Rudolph Hass. He was a pro postman who found this tree in his yard and never knew he would, I wonder how many dollars he got from this. But but, but there's so much variety that's out there, and it's really cool that you're exploring that a bit. And I grow Lula when I can. It, it doesn't like below 25 Fahrenheit and we get one night a year below that.

So Treat isn't exactly having a great time here, but going back to this, the whole story about the gene edit. When you're doing gene editing, one of the big criticisms is that you get these off-target effects and have you checked for those or is there any evidence of that or, or does it look like you're getting the edit you're looking for?

Jeff Touchman: The, the biggest concern that you should [00:22:00] have around editing is that particularly if you're, if you're editing a, a gene in a, in a gene family, so there, there are four PPO genes in avocado, and we only think there's one that's important to confer the non browning phenotype and we don't wanna mess with the others.

And so, but they're all similar because they're all of the same gene family. So one of the things that we do routinely, as a matter of practice, is we go in and when we study the sequence, After the editing has occurred, study the sequence of these other PPOs to make sure that we haven't accidentally edited those as well.

And so, and if we have, we just throw those out. And then we also do a very careful screen Of, of any places in the genome that, that have any similarity to the, to the targeting mechanism of the CRISPR complex to, to make sure that we haven't introduced an edit somewhere else in the genome that might hit a genome that with unintended.

And so in all those cases, those are, those are bars that we must re must reach before we move a [00:23:00] product forward, you know? And as to the, the notion that there might be other wild off-target effects happening with crispr, I think the science is fairly clear now and, and shows this is work done in corn and in tomato and rice.

That, that this level of, of, of off target CRISPR edits is, is, is at or below the. The mutation, the, the random mutation rate you might see in conventional breeding, and it's really nothing to worry about. Yeah, that very well stated 

Kevin Folta: that it poses no more risk than traditional breeding. And I, I think that that's a really important point.

But the other criticism you always hear is that non browning or a slow browning fruit Browning is an important visual signal for the freshness of the, of the fruit item in that, you know, browning, it's, it's a flag that says, well, maybe there's something wrong with the fruit quality. Maybe it's not going, it's not, maybe it's going bad.

And so if you take away the browning, how do you know an avocado is not good? 

Jeff Touchman: Yeah, that's a good question. I, I should emphasize that, [00:24:00] that having an innate trait within avocado, that, that, that inhibits browning and delays browning, does not mean that the fruit won't go brown. At all. Right? There are, there are other things that may contribute to browning in, in a cut products life cycle, so to speak, right?

So there, so, you know, as, as a, as a cut fruit sits around, you're going to get microorganisms that, that start to Be involved in the spoilage of that fruit, just like with any other cut fresh produce. And so, so, so it's not going to be a, a, a product that, that has an infinite non browning type of appearance.

As long as you hold onto it, it, it will start to decompose. It's, we're not inhibiting any sort of kind of pest resistance, so to speak. Right. And so, so I would say it would have the same type of a shelf life and appearance of, of, of. So consumability as, as any other produce that has, that doesn't have a browning problem.

Right. I mean, if you have a, have produce that you've been saving in your fridge for two [00:25:00] weeks and I don't know, I might just throw that out anyway cause you don't know how it might be attracting things like microorganisms and such. That's, that's how I look at it. That's true. But 

Kevin Folta: then the, also the the browning process is not linked to aspects of other aspects of ripening, like you know, breakdown of cell walls and, and pectin nest or all that stuff, right?

So you, things will still get soft and mushy and weird even if it doesn't turn as brown. So you still have that right, that. To think about, so that's good. Yeah. I, you know, one of my goals here on the podcast is to kind of fortify the listener with all the questions they're going to get at the cocktail party.

And so, so when I'm asking you questions that I already have answers to, it's really just so you could tell them yeah. So those of you who, so a lot of folks have questions about the regulatory environment, especially around gene editing, and can you give us a sense around what the regulatory hurdles are for your product and where it is in that process?

Jeff Touchman: Yeah, so the good news there is that we have already submitted our non browning avocado product to [00:26:00] the U S D A, and this was done back in 2020, and we have, we have already achieved non-regulated status for, for our product. It went through a process called, it's called the MI regulated process, which has now been superseded with, with different rules, but would still pass under even the current rules.

And, and it, and it. And it, it, it, it achieved that lack of regulation because the U S D A had already had experience in examining other products with, with that have had the P p O gene knocked out in them. So I'm talking specifically about the, the non browning white mushroom and, and of, of course other pro our romaine lettuce, other, other products like that.

So and they also, they, they, they judge it on, on will this edit. Confer some type of plant pest risk. And that not being the case with this particular gene edit and, and, and the PPO gene itself they deem that they didn't need to to regulate it. As such, now we've also, our planning, [00:27:00] we are planning to, to voluntarily work with the FDA to look at our product.

Look at its nutritional profile. Its its allergenicity profile. We're not expecting any sort of hurdles there. But, but we plan to do that just voluntarily as well to get the FDA seal of approval. 

Kevin Folta: Sure. And that an in due time of course, but when, when when if things go just perfect, when is it that you may see the first fruits, and when is it that this may be available for consumers?

Jeff Touchman: That's a good question. Things are moving fast, but, but trees grow as fast as trees. Trees grow and so we, we, we, we know some tricks. We have some horticultures culturalists on our staff that know some tricks. We feel that we can, our first fruits are probably, I like to talk in months because months go fast, but we could probably see our first fruits in 24 months.

In anticipation that, that these non browning products will, will wanna be grown broadly. We are propagating these plants. We have technology around avocado propagation [00:28:00] as well in our lab. And so we are propagating that is making lots of clones of all of these plants very early on. So we're starting this process right now.

So we are expecting to get early adopters of. Of these non browning scions, we call them and, and get them onto grafted root stocks and, and, and into test, test trials. You know, as, as early as as 24 months, when will we see it from a consumer's perspective? That's going to depend on a lot of, of, of, of industry adoption.

You know, the, unfortunately the, the, the trend in, in. And fruit trees is to, is to look at the performance of these things over, over many, many years before there's wide adoption. I think that this trade is so groundbreaking that we might see some early adoption. It's not gonna take quite as long, but it still could take three to five years before we start to see this and, and, and in a, at a meaningful 

Kevin Folta: scale.

Yeah, I can think of three or four companies. That would love to plant this [00:29:00] product because they have so many added value, value added products or restaurant associated food service that would love to see this trait. And I, I think you have no problem finding adopters for this thing. Well, let's you know, maybe zoom out a little bit more and you know, what other products are happening in the pipeline at Green Venus.

Jeff Touchman: Well you know, we, we have further plans for avocado beyond non browning, for instance. We haven't talked about avocado root stocks, but, but root stock traits are also very important for avocado. You know, in terms of increasing resiliency to. Salinity and, and, and suboptimal soils. Water use, efficiency things like that.

These are disease resistance, of course, is a very big one. You know, these, these are very big traits that that influence and could have a big impact on on, on the avocado growers industry. And so we have, we reached out and are working with a lot, we have a lot of conversations ongoing with, with growers in the industry around some of those traits that they find [00:30:00] of value.

We think that a small seed or a seedless avocado could be an interesting, interesting product. And so we're doing some, some informal consumer research on that right now. You know, and beyond that, there's we have a lot of interest from everything from, from other vegetables that, that have a lot of key consumer traits that, that, that, that.

That we can influence such as tastier tomatoes, more, more colorful tomatoes and more colorful strawberries, more better tasting strawberries, things like that. I mean, there's, there's such a broad palette right now with, with new technologies, new breeding technologies being brought to bear on fruits and vegetables that, that we we're gonna let the marketplace, you know, Guide our direction.

But, but we have a lot of, of, of good ideas. We have a lot of good foundational science now and systems that can make this happen. And so we're, we're looking forward to the future at Green Venus. Yeah, it's super cool. So are, do people 

Kevin Folta: who are consumers of fruits and vegetables look for the Green Venus brand, or are you really [00:31:00] just somebody who licenses these really good technologies to 

Jeff Touchman: other retailers?

Yeah, yeah. Today we're a technology company today, and so you, you probably won't see the Green Venus, Venus brand yet particularly if it ends up in, in food service channels. But who knows? We've, we've talked about vertically integrating and maybe becoming a, a grower ourselves and, and a producer.

We'll see, we'll see what the future holds. But right now you'll probably see a brand could be a dole, a non browning avocado. Right. Or, or, or something like that. I I, I'm just using that as an example. We're not discussing that with them, but but that, that's the answer to that question. Yeah. No, very, very good.

Kevin Folta: Well, this is super exciting. So, you know, Jeff Toman, thank you very much for joining me on the podcast and I really hope that I can extend an invitation now. For as this progresses, please check back in and we'll update our listeners as to what this product is and where it is in the pipeline. 

Jeff Touchman: Thank you.

I'm a, I'm a big fan of your podcast and it was just really delight to, to talk about this with you today. I neglected 

Kevin Folta: to ask you where can people find out more [00:32:00] about it? 

Jeff Touchman: Sure. You can find more information of what's happening at Green Venus green venus.com and if you have any follow up questions for me that I can, I can answer email me at info@greenvenus.com.

Kevin Folta: And that email address works. Cause that's how I got in touch with you. Yeah, that's right. And so for all the listeners, thank you for listening to the Talking Biotech podcast and joining me and thinking about a future of green guacamole that lasts more than a few days, or a few hours or minutes as it were.

This is just another exciting application of the technology, but the reason it's so cool is non browning avocados are in the same camp with things like insulin and sickle cell disease. Where these are technologies that people can relate to and can see the benefits, and can see how they can affect their lives as well as the lives of others.

So it's very exciting technology that I hope you learn more about. This is The Talking Biotech podcast by collab, and we'll talk to you again next week.