#160: Jennifer Stojkovic - The Future of Food is Female
Jennifer Stojkovic is a food-tech leader, founder of Vegan Women Summit (VWS), and author of “The Future of Food is Female.”
You know how my Mom and Sister just released their new book, Be a Plant-Based Woman Warrior? Well, Jennifer Stojkovic is one of those warriors.
In 2020, she founded Vegan Women Summit (VWS), a global media and events platform focused on empowering women to build a kinder, more sustainable world. She also recently released the fabulous book, The Future of Food is Female, highlighting fifteen female leaders, innovators, and changemakers in the plant-based food space.
It is rare to find someone as passionate and driven as Jenny is to elevate, showcase, and promote women working in food tech. As she writes, “Food system reform is the greatest challenge facing humanity today - and women are leading the charge and changing how we approach food.”
Today, Jenny shares her unconventional route from Canada to Silicon Valley, and we highlight several of the changemakers in her book, along with the many projects she leads - including the Vegan Women’s Summit - her flagship event that returns in 2023 with a three-day event in New York City.
There is no doubt that the work she is doing today will provide a roadmap for future generations on how we approach food.
More About The Future of Food is Female
With exclusive interviews and original insights, The Future of Food is Female features a collection of cross-cultural stories from fifteen CEOs, venture capitalists, scientists, and trailblazers who are reinventing our food system and saving our planet.
From plant-based to cell-based innovation, artificial intelligence, and policymaking, women are leading this impactful industry and changing how we approach food.
This book shares their stories of advocacy within food tech and empowers future generations to learn, innovate, and change the world.
Episode Resources
Order The Future of Food is Female
2023 Vegan Women’s Summit Details
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Rip Esselstyn:
Here is a fun email that I received last week. "Rip, your PLANTSTRONG pizzas have helped my family of five get excited about healthy eating. Every Friday night, we bake all five pizza crusts from your kit and each member of the family gets to then build their own. We take turns baking them and then serve up one monster pizza buffet. Sometimes we compete on who makes the best pizza while watching a movie or playing board games. The leftovers are our lunches the next day, and our kids ages nine, 11 and 12 all enjoy the freedom and creativity of the fun Friday meal. Thank you for making a product that we can feel great about serving our kids and shipping them everywhere. Because our local stores have very few plant-based options. And for the cost of one specialty pizza from a local pizza place, we get to make five healthy versions. We can't thank you enough. Marcy from Lawrence, Kansas."
Well, Marcy, I love that PLANTSTRONG PIZZA KITS are the centerpiece of your family's Friday nights. And I want you to know there's a lot of other families that roll the same way, including the Esselstyns. If you haven't already, be sure to check out our ultimate pizza guide, where we have collected some of our favorite ingredient toppings to try at home. It is nutso how many we have. And it sounds like your family could publish a recipe guide for us as well. For anybody that's interested, please send me a photo the next time your family sets up the ultimate PLANTSTRONG PIZZA buffet. I want to see it. Email me at hello@planstrong.com and for anyone who wants the guide, simply visit plantstrongfoods.com.
Jennifer Stojkovic:
How do we open up this conversation about changing the food system? Because as you know, and you talk to guests all the time about this, food is one of the few things that affects all of us. Absolutely everybody is affected by food. We all eat. There's almost eight billion people on this planet and we all eat and we need to make sure as we make the decisions for what the future of this planet is going to eat, that it's inclusive of everyone or we're going to fail. We absolutely will fail.
Rip Esselstyn:
I'm Rip Esselstyn and welcome to The PLANTSTRONG Podcast. The mission at PLANTSTRONG is to further the advancement of all things within the plant-based movement. We advocate for the scientifically proven benefits of plant-based living and envision a world that universally understands, promotes, and prescribes plants as a solution to empowering your health, enhancing your performance, restoring the environment, and becoming better guardians to the animals we share this planet with. We welcome you wherever you are on your plant strong journey. And I hope that you enjoy the show.
A few months back, a longtime PLANTSTRONG buddy of mine, Adam Sud, who has been on the podcast several times, he emailed me and he said, "Rip, I want you to meet this woman. She is a absolute force of nature. She is changing the landscape of the plant-based food industry, and I think she'd be a great guest on your show as well." So how in the world am I going to refuse such a testimonial from such a very good friend? And I want you to know, after meeting with Jennifer and speaking with her, he is absolutely 100% right. And you all know that my mother Ann and my sister Jane just released their new book, Be a Plant-Based Woman Warrior. Well, Jennifer Stojkovic is one of those warriors. A little bit about her. In 2020, she founded Vegan Women's Summit. VWS. It is a global media events platform focused on empowering women to build a kinder, more sustainable world.
She recently released her book, The Future of Food is Female, which highlights female leaders, innovators, and change makers in the plant-based food space. And she does a tremendous job with it. In my many years of experience, it is really rare to find someone as passionate and driven as Jennifer is to elevate, to showcase, and to promote women working in food tech. As she writes, "Food system reform is the greatest challenge facing humanity today. And women are leading the charge and changing how we approach food." Today, Jennifer shares her unconventional route from Canada to Silicon Valley, and we highlight several of the change makers in her book, along with the many projects that she's leading right now, including the Vegan Women's Summit, which is her flagship event, bringing women together to build a kinder, healthier, and more sustainable world. How kick butt is that? You know that I love to share stories of hope and positive change and Jennifer's work is no exception. So let's jump in with Jennifer Stojkovic.
Hey Jenny.
Jennifer Stojkovic:
Hey. How are you?
Rip Esselstyn:
I'm well. It's really nice to meet you. I feel very fortunate that I was introduced to you by our mutual friend, Adam Sud, the plant based addict.
Jennifer Stojkovic:
Adam is one of the most dynamic connectors in this space. I love how many people I have met through Adam.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Yeah. He's spectacular. And in fact, I'm a little bit PO'ed at Adam right now because you came through Austin in late April of this year for your book tour, right?
Jennifer Stojkovic:
I did. Yes.
Rip Esselstyn:
The Future of Food Is Female. And I, for whatever reason, was clueless. I didn't even get an invite or anything. I would've loved to have shown up.
Jennifer Stojkovic:
Oh, I'm going to blame Adam for that because he helped me with the Austin crew. Oh my gosh. I'm so sorry we didn't get you. Honestly, we had so many people come out in Austin, I think we'll do another event there anyway.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. And I figured that Adam was a part of that and that's why I'm a little bit PO'ed at him right now.
Jennifer Stojkovic:
All right. We're calling you out, Adam. We started with the love, now you're in trouble. We'll get you back up there again.
Rip Esselstyn:
Exactly. Exactly. Jenny, you are a fierce female warrior. And what I want to know, first question out of the gates for you, is you talk about in your book how a lot of girls, women, somehow they get defeated, they shrink, they don't blossom into the amazing, strong, powerful women that they should be. So how is it that you somehow avoided that shrink?
Jennifer Stojkovic:
Oh, that is quite a question to start Rip. Okay. I think that I was fortunate for a few reasons. I had a very atypical childhood. I was raised by a stay at home dad. So while all of my friends either had both parents at work or had stay at home moms, I was the only one that had a dad. And I think that that's absolutely served me well for my career in particular, because I grew up in a house of all women. So just my dad and all girls, mom, two daughters, and we were just all raised as just, I guess, one gender. There was no gender difference in my house. There was no difference between how sons were treated and how daughters were treated. And I think that from the very get go that has influenced the way that I've acted from my youngest years. And as I've gotten a little bit older, I've been really fortunate to continue to have really good role models that are both men and women, particularly some super, super powerful women mentors early in my career as well.
Rip Esselstyn:
Wow. And how many sisters do you have?
Jennifer Stojkovic:
There's just myself and my older sister. So there's two of us. But she's a decade older than me. So she herself was really like a third parent when I was growing up and I think that just created this really interesting dynamic because I had multiple women to look up to, including my mom, who was the one that ... She was our breadwinner. My mom was the breadwinner. And that was not a thing when you're younger. That was a very atypical childhood experience.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Well, you also grew up in Canada, right?
Jennifer Stojkovic:
I did. Yes.
Rip Esselstyn:
I don't know if that's a little bit more common in Canada, but I've always found Canadians to be in many ways ... I'm trying to say this in a kind way. They're just cool, wonderful, kind human beings. And they seem to have their values a little bit in order. Americans, we're all over the map.
Jennifer Stojkovic:
I was really lucky. I grew up in a pretty small town outside of Toronto, which I talk about in the book. It was really interesting because I actually grew up around farms. All over. That was a totally common thing to see. Most of our town ... We were a one stop light type town. There's still not even a McDonald's where I grew up. That's how small it was at the time. And I never really thought about food, interestingly enough. Despite the fact that Canada is such an agricultural powerhouse. I never even considered it until I was much later in life.
Rip Esselstyn:
Right. And I noticed in the book, you actually say that you didn't think about it until there was a senseless act of violence that then really changed the way you looked at a lot of things in your life. Can you share with me what that was or how that happened?
Jennifer Stojkovic:
Yeah, absolutely. When I was in my early 20s, my husband and I were newlyweds. So we got married very, very young. I moved to the US when I was 21 with four suitcases and my dog. Everything that would fit. And we eloped at a courthouse. Very crazy, crazy, early years. And unfortunately in our first year of marriage, we suffered a very tragic loss. Our best man and my husband's best friend was murdered. He was murdered in a very senseless, horrible act of gun violence. And we ended up having to go through a murder trial. 22 years old. I had no idea what any of that entailed. The kind of thing that we went through and what our life looked like for that year and a half period was honestly the kind of thing you see in a movie. Press that are swarming on your lawn and just a massive, massive just shift in the way that you view the world when you go through something like that.
And so what happened was my husband and I obviously had this very, very acute tragic grief to deal with in a very visceral way. Murder is unlike any other death because it is a death caused by somebody else. That person was put into jail and we had to do the murder trial. And as we were going through that pain and suffering, we decided to read a lot more and more about Buddhist readings, how others deal with it. Reading lots of books on coping with violence and grief and things like that. We're not religious people at all so this is the first time we'd even looked into things like this. And we discovered pretty quickly that the only way through it was through compassion. So we decided to go forgive the murderer. Go to the prison and forgive him for what he did. And in that we-
Rip Esselstyn:
What was that like?
Jennifer Stojkovic:
Yeah. It's interesting. It's for yourself, not for them. I think you expect it to be more like a movie where you forgive them and then they open up and you have this moment where you both feel this catharsis. But unfortunately for us, that didn't happen. And that really often doesn't happen. You let yourself open and they don't really give back. What ended up happening in our case is he claimed that it was self defense and that he didn't do anything wrong. So he actually ended up not really receiving that forgiveness in the way that we expected. But we felt good that we gave it. It was very, very freeing for us. To this day ... It was eight years ago. We're still the only people in the murder trial that actually did go forgive him. Nobody else in the family or any other close loved ones did.
And I think that we're very fortunate that we went through that experience because in that compassion, that's where I discovered, wow, I am not acting with compassion in my daily life at all. I have gone through this transformative life experience that has completely shifted who I want to be, what I think my impact on the world is. And I've also become very acutely aware of pain and suffering. And I'm a complete hypocrite now. Look what I'm doing three times a day. How on earth can I continue to do that? And so that was the impetus for why I went vegan. We actually both went vegan for ethical reasons and we've never looked back ever since.
Rip Esselstyn:
And remind me. That was roughly ... How old were you when that happened?
Jennifer Stojkovic:
I was 22.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. And how old are you now if you don't mind me asking?
Jennifer Stojkovic:
I just turned 32.
Rip Esselstyn:
Okay. Wow. So you're still a very spring piece of kale.
Jennifer Stojkovic:
Yeah. It happened very early in my life. I tell this story very freely and openly. I talk about this on podcasts all the time and I write about this all the time, because these types of tragic life changing moments, they don't have to break you. They can make you. I think that the best way to describe it is it was the best worst thing that ever happened to my husband and I, because it radically changed who we were as people. I can tell you when I was that young, I was not thinking about my impact on the world. I didn't think about what I ate. I didn't think about anything except for really myself. I had a very self-centered view of life. And when something like that happens, you suddenly realize there's a whole big world out there. And there's a lot of stuff going on out there that you really can't control. But the ones that you can control, the personal decisions you do make, they matter. They matter a lot. So to me, it's like, there's no other way to live your life at this point. I can't even believe that I acted differently before.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. At what point in your life did you go to Silicon Valley and get ensconced in the tech world there?
Jennifer Stojkovic:
A few years after basically we went through the murder trial and unfortunately my husband's other best friend passed in completely unrelated circumstances. It was tragedy after tragedy. Shakespearean level, what happened to us. And so when that second passing happened, we went, "That's it. We got to flip the script and completely change our lives." And so we decided to pack up and we moved west. It was the only thing we could think to do. We were in Florida at the time before so we decided that's it, we've always dreamed of going to California, we've always dreamed of working in the tech industry. My husband already was in the tech industry. So we just picked up and left and we moved to San Francisco before we'd even been to San Francisco. We just heard it was the place to go and we wanted a fresh start so that's what we did. And it's so funny. It's the second time I've done that in my life. I packed and left Canada, moved to America. Didn't know anybody except for my husband. Didn't have anything. Started over. Built an entire new life. That life didn't work out so we decided to start over again.
Rip Esselstyn:
You just keep leaping and the net creates itself on the way down.
Jennifer Stojkovic:
It does. Yeah. What are you going to do? If you're sitting in a situation and you don't like the way that it's going, you can either accept it or you can change it. Every single decision in your life ... I'm sure you've had this conversation with tons of people on the podcast. There's two choices in every decision. Accept it or change it. That's it.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Okay. So you're in the Silicon Valley, you're realizing ... You have some observations. Most of these companies are run by white men, right?
Jennifer Stojkovic:
Yep.
Rip Esselstyn:
And at some point, when you're your gaze goes to food and food tech, you realize that wow, food tech is going to go the same direction that tech in general has and you decide that I think you want to be an influential force in making sure that there's a little bit more diversity. Is that correct?
Jennifer Stojkovic:
Yeah, absolutely. I was very fortunate, and still to this day, still have very strong relationships. Really amazing people I worked with in Silicon Valley. I've worked with all the top CEOs and investors in the space and it was a great, great experience. But I've got to be honest, Rip, it is a very lonely experience when you're a woman. It's a very lonely experience when you're the youngest woman in the room. When you just don't look like and sound like and come from the place that everybody else comes from. And it was very difficult the first few years making it as an executive in tech. Imposter syndrome was very real. There was very few women. I also built my career in lobbying in Silicon Valley. So we take both tech and lobbying, which are two very male dominated spaces and overlap them together. And so, as I saw in 2018 or so, people starting to pay attention to food tech, I thought, "Wow, okay. They're suddenly listening. It's not fringe anymore. People are actually investing in it. I'm not the crazy vegan. People actually know what I'm talking about when I say impossible or beyond now. And this thing's going to turn out just like tech."
And that's a great thing in many ways because we can bring that culture of innovation. We can bring so many positive attributes of the tech industry to this industry, but we also have the baggage of leadership being mostly all white men. Mostly all men in general. And so I thought if we don't make a concerted effort to diversify and create a more equitable future leadership in this space, it's going to look the same and we're going to miss out on tons and tons of incredible leaders and founders and CEOs that could be building the companies that will change the future food system.
Rip Esselstyn:
And that was your impetus then for writing the book?
Jennifer Stojkovic:
Yeah. That was my impetus for creating Vegan Women's Summit, for writing the book, for all of the projects that I'm working on now. It's really focused on how do we open up this conversation about changing the food system? Because as you know, and you talk to guests all the time about this, food is one of the few things that affects all of us. Absolutely everybody is affected by food. We all eat. There's almost eight billion people on this planet and we all eat and we need to make sure as we make the decisions for what the future of this planet is going to eat, that it's inclusive of everyone or we're going to fail. We absolutely will fail.
Rip Esselstyn:
And in your opinion, what do female CEOs, founders of these food companies, what do they bring to the table?
Jennifer Stojkovic:
There's a lot that women bring to the table that's very unique. First and foremost, women have historically always led in food. It's who we are. Women have been in the home. Even before we could have businesses to sell food we've been leading in this space. The very first vegetarian restaurant in all of North America was led by a woman back in the 18 hundreds long before women were even allowed to have businesses. So this is a space that we have always been a part of and then at the same time, we also know that women leaders act differently. They lead differently. They build different types of companies. An interesting stat that I like to share with folks that most people are very surprised to hear is that when women have an exit from their company, versus when men have exits from their companies, women founders actually produce a 63% higher exit valuation than male founders.
Women are more methodical. They are more mission driven than male founders. And when it comes to the food space, this really, really matters because food is a long game. We need people that are in it for the long haul. These are not going to be software companies that you can create an app and sell it off in three or four years. We're talking about very long term infrastructure building companies that are not going to have those same yields in return. So you need to actually be in it for something more. And as I spoke to the 15 women in my book, it was so clear to me that each and every one of them cared about food beyond just the business aspect. They cared because they felt a responsibility to the planet. Many of them were mothers. About half of them were mothers. They felt a responsibility to their children. They just feel different about what their impact is on the world overall than most of the male founders and CEOs that you would speak to.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. So I read your book. You did a phenomenal job with it. Your writing, your storytelling. I loved it. I ate it up. Literally ate it up like it was a kale bruschetta sandwich. But if I lob ball you some of the women that you talk about, would you mind giving a short little synopsis on them and the amazing work they're doing?
Jennifer Stojkovic:
Yeah, absolutely.
Rip Esselstyn:
Okay. And if you don't mind, I'll just start with Pinky Cole, who is the CEO of Slutty Vegan.
Jennifer Stojkovic:
Pinky Cole. Okay. Pinky is an old friend of mine. We've actually known each other from before Slutty Vegan popped off. So Slutty Vegan, for folks that are not aware, is a southern based, it started in Atlanta, fast food chain that's all vegan. And what's so unique about what Pinky is doing is that 98% of her customers are not vegan. And about 98, 99% of her customers are black. Pinky is black. She's a Jamaican American. Her dad went to prison the day that she was born. Really grew up in, I believe Baltimore, and was raised on a very different path than she ended up on. And she has been looking at how we can mainstream the plant-based space to make it accessible to the black community. And she is absolutely one of the most phenomenal, impactful entrepreneurs in both the black community for black entrepreneurship, but in the plant-based community as a whole, because she is getting vegan burgers into mouths that would never, ever have seen the vegan space as a place for them.
Rip Esselstyn:
That's a pretty powerful stat that 98% of her customers you said are not vegan. That's fantastic. All right. How about Lisa Feria, if I'm pronouncing your last name correctly. Which she is the CEO of Stray Dog Capital. And because of you and your book, I reached out to her because we're wanting to do another funding round at PLANTSTRONG Foods and had a great conversation with her. So thank you for that.
Jennifer Stojkovic:
Awesome. That's what I'm here for. So Lisa Feria, another old friend of mine, she is absolutely phenomenal. She is a Puerto Rican American. Puerto Rico's part of America, but she's actually a Cuban refugee that came through Puerto Rico that came to America. So an amazing immigrant story in her family. One of the first Latina VCs in the space. The biggest VC when it comes to the plant based and food tech space. She basically saw a meet your meat video years ago when she was in her corporate career and discovered that what was going on in the food system was just absolutely abhorrent. And she overnight was one of those types of vegans went, "Oh my gosh, I can't believe that this is going on in the world and I'm not doing something about it." So she started one of the very first venture capital firms.
So those are firms that provide outside funding to startups that are looking to grow. Early investor in Ethan himself. Very timely. You just mentioned him. And was one of the pioneers in making the plant based and food tech space a space for people to invest. Back in 2015, 2016, nobody was paying attention to this. Vegan was a fringe thing. This was not something that people invested in. Obviously nowadays, you're hearing about all mainstream investors doing it, but she really was a change maker and a pioneer when it came to convincing investors that they can make money in this space and that it's the right thing to do.
Rip Esselstyn:
And maybe you said this, but they're only capitalizing and investing in plant-based startup companies.
Jennifer Stojkovic:
Yeah. So they do plant-based and they also do cultivated meats as well. So anything that is removing animals from the food system, they work on. And they've had dozens and dozens of investments. Some really, really great exits. Lots of them have sold. Lots of them have gone public. But as I mentioned earlier, it's the long game. So VCs that are committed to this space, they know that they're committing to companies that are not going to be able to exit quickly like other types of industries. So the type of people that it requires to be an investor in this space, it's pretty remarkable. These are people that care. They're in it for the mission. And they know that they're making a difference.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. How about Riana Lynn, the CEO of Journey foods?
Jennifer Stojkovic:
Riana is ... Well, she's near you. She's in Austin, Texas. She's an absolutely phenomenal leader in this space that has done everything. Where do you start with Riana? I mean, she's an Obama alum. She was at Google ventures. Her mentor's a former CEO of McDonald's himself. Okay. This is a woman that has one of the most decorated careers of anyone I know. She's 35 years old. I don't even understand how she's packed that many careers in her lifetime. And she is looking to use AI to break down the inefficiencies in the food system so that we can create a more sustainable food system. And that's a pretty novel thing. We still largely have a very broken supply chain, as we know. I mean, we're watching this with the war in Ukraine right now. This is a big deal. And it's a large part of why people like Ethan for instance, had trouble early on in the days of Beyond.
Remember when you couldn't find a Beyond Burger? Was it back in '18 or so? You couldn't find a Beyond Burger for six months because of the pea protein shortage. These are the less sexy things to talk about in food. How things get from A to B, how we can reduce that footprint, how we can get more plant proteins into the system. How do we take plant proteins that are currently being grown to become animal feed and turn them into products for us to eat? How do we make it more efficient? That's the dirty work that she is doing and it's hard, hard work. She's an absolute just complete badass in this space when it comes to her leadership. I was just talking to her yesterday. She's at World Economic Forum. She's everywhere.
Rip Esselstyn:
Wow. I love people that aren't afraid to jump in and do hard work. Hard, important work. So bless Riana.
Jennifer Stojkovic:
Yeah. Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
What about Daniella Monet?
Jennifer Stojkovic:
Rip, I love the ones you're choosing by the way. Because every person I speak to picks somebody else out of the book to ask me about and I never know who it's going to be because everyone ... They connect to somebody different. There's always something in your path or in your interest that's drawing you to these women and it's the same with everyone I talk to.
So Daniella is just one of the kindest, most giving humans I've ever met in my life. She's a Nickelodeon star. So former child actor that's grown up and now she does a number of different things in the plant-based space. She co-founded Kinder Beauty Box, which is the leading vegan beauty subscription box. Hundreds of thousands of them go out every single month and they specifically are looking to remove any cruelty to animals in the beauty and cosmetics space. Which is still a pretty big space for companies to come into.
We talk about vegan food all the time, but animals are used quite substantively in both animal testing as well as even in the products for makeup. So she worked on creating that with Evanna Lynch and Andrew from PETA actually. So Andrew left PETA. Evanna is, as everyone probably knows, Luna Lovegood from Harry Potter. And the three of them said, "We're all vegans and we want to start creating consumer options to make it easier to make vegan choices. There's lots of brands that are doing it in food. What can we do?" And beauty was a huge part of that.
So they are creating really the forefront of vegan beauty. In addition to that, she funds all kinds of different plant based companies. She's a very active investor in this space. And really just a great example of, if you have a platform, regardless of how you got that platform ... Maybe you were an actor, maybe were on reality TV. I know lots of former reality TV stars that now do the plant based space. If you've got people that follow you, you can make a difference and you absolutely should. If you have a platform, you should speak on it. And what she has done with hers is just absolutely remarkable.
Rip Esselstyn:
You are doing such a great job synthesizing down each one of these people. I want to ask you about three more. Are you good with that?
Jennifer Stojkovic:
Yeah, let's do it.
Rip Esselstyn:
Three more, then we're going to move on to the VWS and some other fun things. So I'm probably not pronouncing her name right. Liron Nimrodi?
Jennifer Stojkovic:
I was with Liron yesterday. Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
Oh my God. The CEO of Zero Egg.
Jennifer Stojkovic:
Liron. I don't even know where to start with Liron. This is just a crazy, crazy story. So her story is about how she took her background in military leadership and is bringing it to the food system. So Liron is from Israel. I was with her this week at a food tech conference actually. And her focus is specifically on how she could create one of the most impactful products she could in the plant-based space. So she has been vegan, vegetarian a very, very long time, personally. Building up a career in the food and beverage space. Before that she was a base commander at the age of 19 and she led 12 different soldiers. Female base commander. And she's really applied this military structure and approach to how she's building her company. So her company Zero Egg specifically does plant-based eggs. Okay. That's it. They do plant-based eggs.
Sounds simple right? Here's the thing. We only have really one plant-based egg company. Just, which Just Egg are a remarkable product, has 99% of the market share. I think we have 1% of market penetration in households in America when it comes to vegan eggs. So 40% of homes will buy vegan milk. Usually almond milk. But it's only 1% are buying eggs or potentially 2%. It's extremely low. So we need more and more brands out there. So she laser focused on what is the space that needs the most attention right now. And that's why she created Zero Egg. And the way that she is building out her US arm out of Tel Aviv and now launching over here is very interesting because it really does show a lot of her background in efficiency and being a commander in the military. That was one of the things that we really touch on in the book. And as well with Israel, it's a desert. They don't have the ability to grow their food. They know for a fact that they need to invest in future food technologies. So we're actually seeing a tremendous amount of CEOs coming out of Israel in particular, in the plant based and cultivated meat space right now. There's probably close to three dozen companies. Maybe more. And it's a country of nine million people.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. So relatively small.
Jennifer Stojkovic:
Tiny.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah.
Jennifer Stojkovic:
The size of Los Angeles. New York is eight million people.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Yeah. Tell me this. I know you've written several different articles for Rolling Stone. And in one of them ... And I can't remember which one, because I know that you wrote one, which is What Will the Future of Plant-based Meats Look Like? You wrote one about just plant-based innovation that's going on right now. And then your third was Why I Think the Future of Food Will Be Led by Women. And one of those, you talked about how you thought that one of the most exciting innovations in the place for growth would be the plant based egg category. And is that because you feel like the market's so wide open, as you just said? But don't you feel the same way about plant-based meats, comparatively? What do we have? Beyond and Impossible? And I know you list a lot in that article that are up and coming that I'd love to talk about. But was it seafood I think you said you were so excited about? And then eggs, right?
Jennifer Stojkovic:
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And infant and toddler space too is the third one that I said.
Rip Esselstyn:
And that's appropriate one these days, right?
Jennifer Stojkovic:
Yeah. I wrote that article before the shortage happened. Wrote the chapter on it last year before the shortage happened, talking about how this was going to happen. Go figure right?
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah.
Jennifer Stojkovic:
So I think that eggs is a really important space because eggs are ... If we're looking at changing the chicken farming industry, eggs are part of it. Egg farming and chicken farming are one in the same. These are interlinked industries. I know that a lot of people think that chickens that produce eggs don't become chicken and vice versa and all that, but that's just not true. And so if we are going to start trying to dismantle the chicken that we eat in this country, we need to also be looking at eggs as well. Chicken is the number one protein we eat in America. We talk about burgers all the time. And I agree with you. Plant-based meats, still a huge, huge opportunity. But the reality is that we don't eat burgers that often. It's less than 20%. But what we do eat all the time ... Do you know what the number one selling protein in America is?
Rip Esselstyn:
When you say protein, like animal protein?
Jennifer Stojkovic:
Yeah. Number one selling meat in America.
Rip Esselstyn:
I'm going to say steak.
Jennifer Stojkovic:
Tyson nuggets. Tyson chicken nuggets.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. I had no idea. Wow.
Jennifer Stojkovic:
That is the number one selling meat in America. Tyson nuggets. If you look at the top five highest selling meats in this country, Oscar Meyer wiener hotdogs, Johnsonville brats. We eat a lot of processed crap. We really do. And when it comes to processed meats and things like that, what do you think ... Broiler chicken's become chicken breasts and things like that. But we use egg laying hens for all of that so it is all interlinked. So we can't simply just be looking at the meat. It's just looking at the cow, but then not also looking at the dairy. I think the average amount of products that come out of a cow are over 200. Beef tallow, all the fats, all the gelatins, things like that. Here's a fun fact for you. You talked about Canada being progressive earlier. Did you know that there's beef tallow in the money? The actual literal money. Next time you hold a Canadian bill, when you're up north there's actual animals that are used in currency. So we use animals in a lot of ways. So we need to think really big when we talk about what the implications of disrupting even one piece of the animal ag system looks like.
Rip Esselstyn:
Wow. Couldn't agree with you more. And for example, you also talk about one of the areas that's ripe for innovation is pet food. And I learned recently that 30% of the meat that's produced in this country goes to feed our pets. And a lot of people like you and me that are vegans actually feed our dogs some sort of dog food that has meat in it when the reality is they would do much better off without the meat and just a nice plant-based dog food. So do you agree with all that?
Jennifer Stojkovic:
My dogs have been vegan for eight years.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yehe. Good.
Jennifer Stojkovic:
Yeah. Yeah. It's so funny, Rip. You want to hear a real mind trip there? My dogs went vegan before I did. Actually it's probably nine years now. Because I learned about what they put in dog food back when ... Do you remember when we kept getting those Chinese recalls maybe five, 10 years ago all the time with dog food and pet food? And so I looked into it and I was like, "Wow. Oh my God. The meat that they use for pet food is so poor quality. Better change my dog's diet." And then it wasn't me until a year later. I was like, "Wait, duh. I'm doing it too. Why am I doing it?" It's funny how that works. If America's dogs and cats were a country, they would be one of the top five biggest meat eating countries in the world.
Rip Esselstyn:
Exactly.
Jennifer Stojkovic:
Here's the other thing Rip. Talking about that whole animal egg system and how it's all interwoven, the types of meats that they use for dog food for instance, a lot of those are those egg laying hens that they then grind up later because it's poor meat quality. It does go into dog food, again. So it's all really interwoven in how we use meat in the system. But there is a ton of studies that are now showing that vegan diets are just as healthy, potentially healthier for dogs. So my dogs have been great for all of these years. I use Wild Earth. My friend, Ryan Bethencourt, he's the founder of it. Mark Cuban's one of his biggest investors. And it's a 31% protein content, which is great because I have a diabetic dog and diabetic dogs usually need a special diet. They need at least 30% protein. And his product, turns out, as a vegan product meets those dietary requirements, which is really cool.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. No, we actually ... My second year of the podcast, Wild Earth was one of our sponsors. I've been feeding our dogs Wild Earth ever since and actually had the veterinarian who was the inventor of Wild Earth on the podcast.
Jennifer Stojkovic:
Oh, Ernie.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Ernie. Exactly. Exactly.
Jennifer Stojkovic:
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I think the bigger point to the discussion is really, we use animals in everything. We do. I'm getting my very first vegan car next month. I didn't even have a vegan car. We use-
Rip Esselstyn:
What kind of car is it?
Jennifer Stojkovic:
Oh, you're going to like this. I got the brand new electric vegan Mustang.
Rip Esselstyn:
Nice.
Jennifer Stojkovic:
Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
You and what-
Jennifer Stojkovic:
Racing orange.
Rip Esselstyn:
I don't know if Tesla makes a vegan Tesla, but I found out this morning a friend of mine had a flat tire in the parking lot of the swimming pool. And so I was like, "Okay, well let's fix this together." We could not find the spare tire. We found out they don't have a spare tire.
Jennifer Stojkovic:
In a Tesla?
Rip Esselstyn:
Yes.
Jennifer Stojkovic:
In the trunk there isn't one?
Rip Esselstyn:
No. There was ... No. So we called Tesla and they're like, "Yeah, it doesn't have a spare." And so we sent the Tesla AAA service to come and change it out. But a little tidbit for Tesla drivers.
Jennifer Stojkovic:
I did not realize that. It's so funny. I never saw myself as a Tesla driver. All my friends have Teslas. It just is never for me. I think this year there's over 20 different car manufacturers are launching EVs. The Mustang just launched last year. And it's just so interesting to see because it was like we spent the last nearly 10 years of just Tesla, just Tesla, just Tesla and it was very slow. Very, very, very slow. And then once the demand was there, all of a sudden you saw an announcement from the big five car manufacturers, every single one of them is going fully electric in the next 15 years. And I saved that. I saved that headline in December when it came out. And I looked at it and I said, "That is going to be our industry." That's what's going to happen. They're letting us slowly, but surely create the demand, create the infrastructure and then in a few years time, hopefully sooner, rather than later, you're going to see an announcement that the big four meat companies in this country are going to go all cultivated or all plant based. But they want to make us work for it. That's the thing. We need to build that demand ourselves to justify the industry before the big guys see it as worthwhile in investing just like Tesla had to.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yep. No, that's a great example. And with price of gas now going over $5 a gallon, it can't happen fast enough. Same thing with plants. So when do you think it'll be that, let's just say we have 50% or more of this country eating predominantly plants?
Jennifer Stojkovic:
I think that the answer to this question is a little bit tricky because I think that we're going to see people eating a hybrid diet that we largely need. We need to move people away from eating industrial farmed animal meat. And there's many levers we can use to do that. One can be plant-based products. The other can be precision fermentation products. So those are products that are creating bioidentical proteins without the use of an animal. And then of course the third one is the cultivated meats or for folks that aren't familiar, "lab grown meat". And that is where I think we can move people. We can move people towards a diet that is a compilation of all of those pieces together that hopefully makes meat consumption the minority. I think we're naive to ever believe the entire world will go vegan. I think we're naive also to believe that the majority of Americans will just shift to an only plant based diet.
I think if we can get Americans to be eating meats that are a hybrid of mostly pea proteins, mostly plant based, maybe we stick a little bit of cultivated fat in there. A couple percent just to make it taste a little bit meatier, but if they're eating mostly a plant-based item, that's where we win. And I think that you're going to see stuff starting next year actually. They're going to start regulating the ability for us to sell cultivated products. And I think over these next five years, you're going to see a completely new category of foods that take it to the next level. The way that Impossible elevated plant-based meats from those that came before it from the tofurky and Quorn. You're going to see this next big step up and that's when I think we go more mainstream.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. No, that was really well put. And I think with the cell based meets once that really starts to scale and the pricing model there makes a lot of sense ... I read an article probably two years ago that was just like, it will effectively put an end to our current animal agriculture system because it's so absolutely ineffective.
Jennifer Stojkovic:
Oh yeah, absolutely. Are you kidding me? I mean, you can see probably in the reflection. I'm sitting here in Los Angeles right now. There's a lot of browning that's happening in the hills I'm looking at right now because we're in another water shortage. We're in another drought. I've got a water notice on my house right now. We're down to a third of our water supply in the state of California. And do you know where our water's going? 80% of the water in the state of California goes to agriculture. That produces 2% of our GDP. So it not only goes to animal agriculture. One of the biggest factory farms in America is less than an hour outside of Los Angeles. That's a fun fact for you. Most people don't realize that that even is taking place here. But in addition to that, what is using all of our water in this state? The most water intensive crop. Do you know what the most water intensive crop is in California? You want to take a guess?
Rip Esselstyn:
Don't tell me it's almonds.
Jennifer Stojkovic:
It's not. But they put that in the news to make you think that didn't they?
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, they sure did.
Jennifer Stojkovic:
That's a great example. Yeah. That's misinformation. That is not the most water intensive crop. The most water intensive crop in California is alfalfa. Rip, when's the last time you ate alfalfa?
Rip Esselstyn:
I can't remember.
Jennifer Stojkovic:
Because we don't eat it. 80% of that alfalfa is going to feed cows and pigs. We are currently using our water in California to go grow alfalfa that is then taken and it is put on ships and sent to China to feed China's pork. That is how we are using our water in the state of California right now. It doesn't even go to animal agriculture here. It largely actually is being sold to other countries. Typically China. It's absolutely insane. You want to talk about inefficiency.
Rip Esselstyn:
What company is growing this alfalfa that's using 80% of the water that's sending it over to China for pork? Do you know?
Jennifer Stojkovic:
Tons and tons of ... I mean, there's-
Rip Esselstyn:
Tons of companies. Okay.
Jennifer Stojkovic:
Tons. When you get into it. It's just, when you start to unpeel the layers of how we are making food in this country, it makes no sense. You don't have to even think about animals. I think from an ethical standpoint, we shouldn't kill. Let's remove that from the conversation altogether. Let's have a brass tacks conversation about how we use our limited resources in this country of 330 million people. Let's talk about how we use our land. Let's talk about how we use our water. Because the water is not going to get any better. The climate crisis is not going to get any better. I saw a meme the other day that said, "Instead of thinking about how this is the hottest summer you've ever had, think about this is the coolest summer you'll ever have for the rest of your life." Just think about that for a second.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. You mentioned the alfalfa that's going to China for the pork. Tell me what just happened here in ... I think it was in California with Smithfield Foods.
Jennifer Stojkovic:
Yeah. Smithfield has decided to close down their only pork processing plant that's here in Southern California. And so Smithfield for folks that aren't aware, it's the biggest meat company in the world, the biggest pork producer in America. Smithfield hams. And they produce a ton of different brands that you probably see at the store. Fun fact for you. Smithfield, not even an American company. Smithfield is also owned by China. Smithfield was sold to China about five years ago or so because China has an insatiable need for pork. Pork is the number one consumed protein in China right now. They have astronomical pork farming. And so that's why they bought Smithfield. The reason they closed it here is because A, California is expensive to operate in. Sure. But that's a distraction. The real reason that they closed it is because we raised the farming standards in the state of California several years ago with a measure that was called prop 12. Are you familiar with this Rip?
Rip Esselstyn:
Well, I am only because I've seen it on your Instagram.
Jennifer Stojkovic:
Yeah. Yeah. So prop 12 was a measure that was passed overwhelmingly by voters and it was passed to basically create more humane animal farming standards. So basically saying that we can't use gestation crates that would force mother pigs to be constantly kept on their side while they're either pregnant or feeding their piglets. They basically can't stand up. In addition to that, there's also battery cages for hens and just various extremely cruel things that we currently do to keep animals in confinement so that we can intensively farm them. The state of California said, "No, we don't want that here. And we also don't want to consume that either." So when the bill was passed, it not only change the way that you had to farm in the state of California, but it also changed the way that you have to farm if you sell in the state of California, which is 40% of consumers in the United States. So Smithfield did not want to comply with that. And that is why they have said that they are going to close their processing plant. I have very unfortunate news to tell you, though, Rip. That is facing a Supreme Court challenge. It's expected to come down potentially in the next week or two and it might get struck down. And the Biden administration unfortunately has sided with the meat industry in not supporting this measure.
Rip Esselstyn:
Oh my gosh. Wow. We're getting a lot of unfortunate news lately from the Supreme Court.
Jennifer Stojkovic:
Yeah. June is a bad, bad month. So there's environmental stuff. There's animal stuff. Obviously Roe. There's a lot going on. So yeah, we'll see if they uphold it. But really at the end of the day, it's very clear and transparent that animal ag producers know that consumers want meat to be made better or they want to eat less meat. By far and large consumers do agree with getting rid of factory farming. Even though most consumers consume factory farmed products, polling shows that 70, 80% of people oppose it. And we need to run with that. We know that their hearts are in that place. So how do we get their mouths in that place?
Rip Esselstyn:
Yes, totally. We've got about six minutes and I'm going to try and get the most kale out of you that I can in this next six minutes. Okay? So let's try and do a little rapid fire here. Tell me all about Vegan Women's Summit. When you launched it, what it's all about, and when is the next one, if anybody wants to partake?
Jennifer Stojkovic:
So Vegan Women's Summit is a Global Media and Events organization that is focused on empowering more women to get into this space. We do the future of food, fashion, beauty, and biotechnology. So all things animal free innovation. We started as one single conference in San Francisco two years ago in a room of 250 women. We have since grown to become a global platform of 45,000 women professionals across six continents. As well as male allies. We are focused on getting more people interested in this space, either as founders ... We do the only pitch competition in the space that's focused on women. I've had over 1,000 women apply from 31 countries since launching a year and a half ago. We also do job networking. So we have the only job networking event series in the entire industry. So I work with folks at Beyond or Impossible or Miyoko's. All of the top brands in the world to get them talent professionals.
We helped over 2,000 job seekers last year. And of course we do our big flagship summit. That's our big in-person conference. The Vegan Women's Summit. We just did it in April in Los Angeles. It was insane. We had over 800 people flew in from all across the world. We do CEOs, celebrities, activists, athletes, investors. It is all women that are focused on this space. We had Alicia Silverstone. Tons and tons of people came from all over. We will be doing it again next year. I cannot tell you where it will be because that is a surprise we will be revealing soon. But the Vegan Women's Summit will be moving to a new location for next year. We're going to double the size. We're going to a three day summit. Bigger and better than ever. And it'll be in a very exciting major city that you'll hear about. And it'll be next May. So you can see veganwomenssummit.com/newsletter. If you sign up, you can get updates to find out when we release tickets.
Rip Esselstyn:
Wow. Tell me this. You got a golden ticket for 11 Madison Avenue. What was that experience like?
Jennifer Stojkovic:
It was 10 courses in five hours, Rip. Five hour meal. I didn't even think I could eat for five hours, but I can. If it's tiny amounts, it turns out I can eat a lot. It was amazing.
Rip Esselstyn:
I saw the video. It did look like a lot of those little servings were very petite.
Jennifer Stojkovic:
Froofy. Very froofy. Yeah. So it was a good experience. I've been really fortunate to bring together a lot of people in this space that all are advocates in this space that aren't necessarily talking to one another all the time. That's a big part of why I created a media platform. So that I could get investors to know what influencers are up to, to know what restaurateurs are doing, to know what celebrities and actors are interested in. How do we get everyone in one big space so that we can make a much bigger difference much faster?
Rip Esselstyn:
Wow. And you also helped Eric Adams. You did an event for him a couple months ago out in LA. And it's incredible what Eric has been able to do from Brooklyn borough president to now becoming the New York City mayor. And of course he, as you and I both know is PLANTSTRONG himself.
Jennifer Stojkovic:
He is. Eric is an amazing example of how to break down the barriers to the vegan space. I mean, he's a middle aged cop. A black man. He carries a gun. This is not the type person that you'd ever think of as a stereotypical vegan. And that is exactly the kinds of people we need to be outwardly publicly talking about this space. We need people that look different, sound different, think different, all talking about how vegan is the way. So we're going to be doing a lot with him in the next coming year. As well as I've got a lot of members of European parliament, ministers, MPs that we're working with all over the entire world that will be coming to Vegan Women's Summit. They couldn't come this year because of the border. There are people in very, very powerful places all around this world that want to get together and make a much, much bigger change.
Rip Esselstyn:
Wow. You are getting after it.
Jennifer Stojkovic:
I'm doing it, man.
Rip Esselstyn:
You are. You really are doing it. It is so fantastic to meet you. So are you also a rescue diver? Is that right?
Jennifer Stojkovic:
I am, yes. That is my other passion is the ocean and all things animals. 70% of the world is under water. That was why I decided to become a diver because I realized that I love traveling. I've been to 50 countries. Been to six continents. I dove six continents. I want to dive the seventh. You can dive Antarctica for one month of the year. And it's the best way. Folks, if you are interested in seeing the world, you're missing most of it. It's under water. It's amazing. I dove the Red Sea a week and a half ago when I was in Israel. I had a couple days to myself and we got to hang out and play with an octopus. An octopus came up and hung out with us under water. It was like My Octopus Teacher. It was one of the most breathtaking experiences of my life. And it keeps you grounded and closer to the earth and all of its creatures in a way that you don't always have, especially if you live in a city.
Rip Esselstyn:
Wow. Yeah. I really liked My Octopus Teacher. That was really, really great documentary. If anybody hasn't seen it, I highly recommend it. Can you tell me a little bit about your tattoos?
Jennifer Stojkovic:
Yeah. This one that most people always see, this is my sleeve. It's actually dedicated to animals that have been made extinct by humans. So this is actually a Dodo bird and I'm also putting the Northern White Rhino. If folks are familiar, that's the rhino that basically went extinct a couple years ago. So the last male Northern White Rhino, Sudan, I actually went to Kenya five years ago and met him. And I wanted to leave a tribute to all of those animals as a reminder that they should be here today but due to human actions, they are not. And we can still stop all of this If we want to.
Rip Esselstyn:
Jenny, you're a beautiful, beautiful person doing incredible work. It is an absolute pleasure to meet you and to have you on the podcast. I want to have you on again in about a year and get caught up with everything that you've done. But thank you for your time today, your commitment to making the world better. And I agree with you, the future of food is female and we couldn't do it without these amazing women. Thank you.
Jennifer Stojkovic:
Awesome. Thanks so much, Rip.
Rip Esselstyn:
Hey, give me a little fist bump, please. Boom.
Jennifer Stojkovic:
Let's do it.
Rip Esselstyn:
PLANTSTRONG.
Jennifer Stojkovic:
Awesome.
Rip Esselstyn:
As Jennifer said in the interview, the Vegan Women's Summit is going to be bigger and better than ever in 2023, and she's not lying. The dates have recently been announced and it's going to take place May 18th to the 20th, 2023 in none other than the big apple, New York City. Ticket presales start soon so to learn more about the summit and all of Jennifer's work, hop in on their newsletter list at veganwomenssummit.com. And her book, The Future Of Food Is Female is out now and we'll make sure to put a clickable link in the show notes at planstrongpodcast.com. Thanks so much for listening and as always keep it PLANTSTRONG.
The PLANTSTRONG podcast team includes Carrie Barrett, Laurie Kortowich, Ami Mackey, Patrick Gavin and Wade Clark. This season is dedicated to all of those courageous truth seekers who weren't afraid to look through the lens with clear vision and hold firm to a higher truth. Most notably my parents, Dr. Caldwell B. Esselstyn Jr. and Ann Crile Esselstyn. Thanks for listening.
