Kitiya Vongkamjan: Safe Foods from Farm to Fork | Ep

[00:00:00]how to to have clean food and safe food.

[00:00:02]It's like, okay, you must not have bad bugs, right?

[00:00:06]>> Food born pathogens. You must not have this on your food um on the on the table. And by looking at how to control the bad bugs on the food, people may think of, you know, all these you know um traditional ways or the previous um approaches that they have been using by using a lot of chemicals, antibiotics.

[00:00:30]So like for me that is not really safe.

[00:00:33]It's not the the best approach or the appropriate way to to control you know bad bugs.

[00:00:39]>> Mhm. Hello and welcome to episode 40 of the exponential show. Today it is a pleasure of mine to welcome uh Kita Wamchan. Uh Kita, thank you for taking the time to speak with us today.

[00:00:50]>> Thank you for having me today and it's pleasure to yeah to be here.

[00:00:55]>> The the pleasure is all mine. Um before we start uh I just like to thank our sponsors True Digital Park for hosting us in their broadcast room. Uh for those of you who don't know, True Digital Park is uh one of the best soft landing spots for international businesses and individuals in Thailand. Uh and if you are a business looking for visas, work permits, uh or even business registration services, cultural immersion, uh business immersion, uh this is the place for you to be in Thailand.

[00:01:29]First of all, uh it is it has been a long time coming because Vidushi has been talking about you for a long time.

[00:01:35]So I'm very excited to finally have you on the show. Let us start with one question that we ask all our guests is what is your origin story? So what got you into the world of entrepreneurship and specifically uh your work at uh UNIFA?

[00:01:53]And uh I understand you started in the world of academia and then jumped ship into entrepreneurship. So can you tell us more about your journey into being the founder and CEO of UNIFA?

[00:02:07]>> Yes. Um thank you. Um so uh yeah so my career I started as a researcher. So I uh been working in the lab you know doing experiments like for over 15 years. And now I still have to jump into the lab to kind of help solving some of the lab stuff. Yeah. So um I started this project um you know using the fed technology to uh promote food safety and you know um having to having to use this technology to control uh bad bacteria you know in the food supply chain. So I started this project um since my master PhD at Cornell. So I look at how to use um you know how to explore the potential of using um we call a bacteria eater. So this is the phage. So it's like they are tiny tiny microorganism is like the virus uh viral particle. So it's we started from something tiny that people wouldn't think of how to use it. So yeah, I I look at oh yeah, this is a potential to use this uh tiny microorganism to tackle bad disease, infections, uh to to promote uh food safety, you know, better health and wellness rather than just using antibiotics treatment or you know bad chemical treatments in the food supply chain. And um yeah we look at the potential to use this in you know from farm to fork along this supply and when I look at it like where to apply this technology it's it's must be somewhere where we have you know we are producing a lot of foods >> right >> so I I look at the region in Southeast Asia where we are the kitchen of the world >> right >> this is where I I you know um initiated the the project to really look at where to use the technology to be the first adopt into the system >> and I look at my research I look at um our study pipeline and how we can take this into commercialization >> h interesting so yeah I I'll I'd love to learn more about that journey but it's uh at least in the beginning of our conversation I must acknowledge that it is very encouraging to see a biotech startup in in Thailand because uh a lot of the the businesses and uh startups we talk about here in Thailand are very consumerf facing B2C. Uh so it's it's good to see somebody working on in a field like biotech and then sort of pushing the envelope in in that field.

[00:04:53]So congratulations u >> thank you >> on that. Now uh you you mentioned briefly about uh what fage is and and uh sort of how it functions but if you can maybe educate the uneducated here and maybe tell us about >> what was the key problem that you identified in the market uh when you started uh Unifi and how is your technology and your company addressing that problem if you can just educate us on that please.

[00:05:18]>> Yes. Uh so I think uh briefly I mentioned about food safety. So when we talk about what we eat nowadays, every day we want to uh have safe food on the table for you, for your kids, for your family. Yeah. Everyone is looking at this plate with like having, you know, clean food, safe food. And >> how to to have clean food and safe food?

[00:05:42]It's like, okay, you must not have bad bugs, >> food born pathogens. You must not have this on your food um on the on the table. And By looking at how to control the bad bugs on the food, people may think of you know all these you know um traditional ways or the previous um approaches that they have been using by using a lot of chemicals, antibiotics.

[00:06:10]So like for me that is not really safe.

[00:06:13]it's not the the best approach or the appropriate way to to control you know bad bugs coming into the food supply chain. So I look at how our technology which is the naturebased solution >> and we have this is the great advantage over chemicals over antibiotics to control the bad bugs to promote food safety. So as a food producer yeah you can ensure that um the food that you are selling to the consumers are safe >> right >> and with that you don't use antibiotics you don't use chemical treatments so it's good for everyone >> interesting yeah so thanks for that context and there has been a lot of conversation about how much our food is now contaminated not just by bugs but by the the insecticides and pesticides and chemicals that go into destroying the uh the bugs before they get into our food.

[00:07:15]So, it's interesting to see that there's a more natural solution to that in the form of face technology that you're working on. Uh but to dive a little bit deeper into how you identified the problem. Was it more of a personal interest that you had in uh sort of clean eating and and uh clean food or was it more from from the the science side where you felt that there was a better mousetrap to uh to so can can you just explain how you stumbled onto this problem?

[00:07:43]>> Yeah, I think it it's a global movement.

[00:07:46]If we look at ourselves, we want to you know we we want to live longer. We want to enjoy our lives without our families, friends and and and how to live longer by just having to be healthy inside out and where you Yeah. And everything you expose needs to be safe, right? And um and there's a global um concern about you know also about superbugs or antimicrobial resistance. So it's like the more antibiotics you apply, you use >> the stronger the bacteria will become and you have the super bucks and if you don't do anything by 2050 you have more than 10 million deaths per year >> and that we we don't want you know we don't want any families to you know to have to get any family members to have super bugs or AMR issue and at the end of the day you cannot treat it So that is why we need to find a way like alternatives to antibiotics where I focus is the food supply chain.

[00:08:53]So I think this is where we can minimize the use of antibiotics that coming into you know um animal farmings um the primary production in in the farms in the middle of the food supply chain is the processing facilities I see and and coming into the finished food products.

[00:09:13]>> Interesting. So your solutions uh are they primarily focused on the the beginning of the supply chain in the farming stage or do they apply across the the supply chain? Yeah, that's that's a very good point. Um, so um we started the technology by looking at um each segment like uh we were like jumping along until now we actually equipped with the the whole supply chain. Um when I started the project since my graduate studies um at Cornell so I started in the indominial of food supply chain I started at the uh the uh process processing okay >> um steps. So I focus more on the processed food and how to min minimize the use of chemical treatments on you know those ready to eat meats or uh processed meat uh food products and when I look at it uh why don't we just move to the start of the food supply chain in the primary production >> you know animals farmings like when we produce chickens we produce um fish shrimps uh pig We we use antibiotics >> at the start and the farms uh in farming they they have we have seen the records of uh the farmers are using a lot of antibiotics right um yeah so I look at yeah that could be the opportunity you know in Southeast Asia or actually Pacific as uh we are you know the we have one of we are number four largest poultry producer in the world right so and also shrimp producer. So yeah, this is where I move a little bit to the beginning of the food supply chain. So now we kind of go beyond. So from farm, feed, food and beyond.

[00:11:01]>> Wow. So it's basically expanding your your reach within the the food supply chain and and moving sort of vertically integrating in that spectrum as well. So great to hear about that and and the sort of the discovery that you had to go through uh to to realize where are the key areas where your technology can be applied.

[00:11:19]Now the last point you mentioned I think is a good segue into our next question which was about u working in Thailand and the Southeast Asian region. So you mentioned that uh this region is often referred to as the kitchen of the world and we are producing large quantities of both u plant and animal based food. So can you tell us a bit about how the experience has been operating within Thailand and the Southeast Asia region?

[00:11:45]What are the key opportunities that are specific to the region that have been helpful? But also maybe talk about some challenges of working in the region especially I'm guessing when it comes to awareness of uh things like these. So can you talk about both the opportunity and challenge side of operating in Thailand and Southeast Asia?

[00:12:02]>> Yes. Uh um yeah when we look at the opportunity yeah there are great opportunity in terms of um where to adopt our technology because uh our technology um is suitable for controlling um food born pathogens or the bad bacteria across the food supply chain and we talk about all these um farmings. We you know in our region we have all sort of farming we have large quantity of um the volume we supply to the world and uh yeah I think um this is opportunity when uh we we look at uh that the producers need a very specific way to control their system >> to be safe to have higher quality to be um effective in terms of productivity right >> and Um yeah when when we when we look at it that's also the need of um the producer side or our customer right the food producer and uh they they need to find uh and when we we look at the the global movement now everyone is um kind of aiming or projecting into sustainability >> right >> it's how you going to produce food to have responsibility responsible able uh food production and consumption, right?

[00:13:29]>> I think we align that we we have opportunity to uh to actually work with our customers >> to have responsible production, >> right?

[00:13:40]>> And for better consumption for the customers >> and um with with that like now uh they have you know very clear SDG goals. They have to reduce the use of um chemical treatments into the farmland. they have to have a better technology to to be more effective, >> right?

[00:14:01]>> Yeah. So, I think that that's the opportunity we see in the region.

[00:14:05]>> Interesting. Um, so yeah, so it it uh reminds me a lot of things especially when it comes to the narrative both from a consumer standpoint, the the end consumer where there's more talk about eating healthy and eating safe food, eating u or even buying more sustainably. And then on the the other end of the spectrum, even productions, a lot of companies and especially some of the larger uh food producers, they're focusing more on the SG goals and and making sure that they're meeting those targets on sustainability as well. So I think there's a demand from both sides, from the production side and from the actual consumption side. So it's it's a good time for you to to operate in this market. Um and u if you could maybe even talk about some of the challenges of operating in this uh this region and especially Thailand where there's um startups are still uh sort of not celebrated as much if I may uh say that >> uh I I think um uh some of the challenges that we we face is more of how to uh lay out uh the structure to to educate the the producers or our customers because this is um considered a new technology, >> right?

[00:15:26]>> It's innovation. It's something that um we just kind of we uh we just introduce to them, >> right? So if and we know that they are our customers they are like the first group of this early adopter group. So I think uh by learning um how to educate them and how to interact with them to uh to show them that this is the alternative to their uh traditional ways of you know uh their the the previous um uh methods or treatments they have been using in their farming or in their production. uh I think there's something that we are we have to work very closely with our customers to ensure that we are aligned we understand uh they understand our technology and they know what our technology can serve them >> and even uh how and even sometime in some aspect some angles we didn't see that our technology has a potential to serve in a specific application but our customers ers actually um engage and you know and suggest that this is the way that our technology should be adopted or applied for their operations. I think this is great. I I think this is like challenge turning into opportunity.

[00:17:01]Adjust the way of how we work out together and and of course there uh customers who needs more time to decide to be engaged and I think they're there we can classify those customers and we we adjusted the uh our strategy to to educate them and and work out together.

[00:17:23]Um you know I mean it's great to hear that there are some customers a the fact that there are early adopters in this market is already very interesting to hear that there the people who are trying to sort of move outside the tried and tested um and maybe reacting to how the market is evolving more quickly than some others. But more interesting was the fact that there are customers who are almost like co-building with you if that makes sense. And uh we whenever we talk to startup experts the first thing they say is hey you should know your customers and work very closely with customers. So it's good to see you put that that uh thought into practice as well. So >> that's uh great to hear. Now uh there's there's one thing that uh uh maybe talking about the region uh we can maybe dive a bit into is the fact that you uh I think a couple of years ago now you raised uh raised a round of funding and when I speak with founders especially in Thailand or even investors here in Thailand the narrative at least is that raising in Thailand is a challenge u and especially the last couple of years maybe uh even more like last past 3 four years have been even more difficult uh because there was a phase in time when uh funding was easy to come by. Uh but now we've reached a point where investors are focusing more on margins and profitability and and sort of maybe even shorter term return horizons. So in that context uh what was your experience when you were raising and uh do you have any advice for u other founders who might be looking to raise here in Thailand? M >> yeah I think the moment I I was racing for our seat round it was kind of like a like um it's like a like a winter time right >> right yes the funding winter >> funding winter yes um yeah I I think what we we had to really look for um the the investor who really understand the market I think when we are in the region when we are we are in you know Thailand, Southeast Asia, we we need um investor who look at the technology and how the technology is going to go to the right market, >> right?

[00:19:44]>> So when when we um when we when we show to the investor that yeah is our our uh first adopter um our first market is actually Thailand and Southeast Asia.

[00:19:58]And when we we talk about we we mention this to some of the investors maybe based in the US or Europe they may not see that you might just think that is is this the the right market right >> it's are you sure and once we actually we've been working out to identify our market and I we know that this going to be where we launch where we have customers base we have the uh the majority of the wallet chair here, >> right?

[00:20:29]>> So, and yeah, we we look around and and I think the investor that understand is probably from the region.

[00:20:37]>> I see.

[00:20:38]>> So, this is why um we get um investors u based in Singapore, in Thailand and also in the Philippines. So I think this is something that maybe founders can um you know have in mind that uh yeah you just have to have especially for the seed round you must have investors that understand your technology and the market and how you're going to grow for the next phase. Yeah, that's a that's a great insight. Uh because you're right.

[00:21:06]A lot of people who are not based here or a lot of investors who are not based here would not really relate to the problem or wouldn't see the on the ground realities that you are trying to solve for and the technology that you are using to solve it. So I think that's great advice that if you're looking for investments, look for people who understand the market, understand the the problem and hopefully also understand the solution that you're bringing to market. So I think that's a good piece of advice for the early stage founders in our audience who are uh listening to this episode.

[00:21:36]Um now maybe taking a step back. So we've talked about the solutions you're applying within your market but taking a step back if you look at the wider biotech agreed tech space in Thailand.

[00:21:49]We've already established that this is a great market to be in. Do you still see some untapped opportunities that you feel other startups in the region should be addressing? Uh is there anything that comes to mind?

[00:22:00]>> Yeah. Uh when we talk about biotech, I look at um you know how you utilize uh in you know biotechnology to increase productivity to make uh you know better uh to have to be a better solution for um agricultural practices or for animal farming and in in this space. So um I um I believe in anything that is nature-based solution >> combined with uh you know nowadays they have AI tools that coming in. Yes, of course people need to be uh utilize this as a tool right >> to increase your productivity to be more effective in your production. And coming to biotech uh as a nature-based solution, I think there are um different options that now you know uh the food manufacturers, the food producers can look at and utilize this. Um especially nowadays when we talk about if you are still considering using um the same technologies that you you know uh heavily rely on chemicalbased polymers and so on. Those are going to be the pricing are really increasing.

[00:23:17]>> I see. Okay.

[00:23:18]>> Yeah. Like anything that is petroleum based, chemical based and why not look around to explore what you have in the region.

[00:23:27]>> Uh especially the nature based solution from biotechnology and of course AI is something you can deploy and you can utilize that. It's just I think um I I just want to bring this up because chemicalbased now if you compare the pricing uh it's not going to be the same.

[00:23:46]>> Yeah, >> I see. So chemical based would now be more expensive.

[00:23:50]>> Yeah.

[00:23:50]>> Okay. That that's uh very interesting to hear. size and you know those that you mentioned earlier.

[00:23:56]>> Yes, that that's great to hear because u typically the the narrative especially when you're a consumer said okay if you're buying healthy organic naturebased stuff it is going to be more expensive and and that's as a consumer that was my mindset but it's interesting to hear that we have reached a point where nature-based solutions are lower in price compared to chemical artificial ones. So it's uh good to know and I think that is a sign that things are moving in the right direction. So that's uh that's something I did not know and and it's interesting to to hear. There's one quick uh follow-up question. You mentioned the use of AI and and that's something that everybody and their grandma's talking about these days. But uh so outside of perhaps the the office admin productivity gau that I'm sure AI is providing you, do you see any clear applications of uh AI on the the technology side of the work that you do?

[00:24:55]>> Yes. Um for us to uh have a very effective and um the most suitable for formulation for our customers. Now we have you know our uh in-house uh machine learning system and uh incorporating this AI to really customize the formulation to serve customer ABC. So we we really need to look at um uh we have the database to can that we understand um the the bacteria that are causing the issues for for our customers and we are tracking that. We have the history data or the mapping data uh to look at historical um bacteria presence in the food supply chain and with that we can you know formulate um the right uh solution to for for our customers to use in their farming for their poultry production for their shrimp production and also in the food production facilities.

[00:26:00]>> Interesting. So it's so essentially AI is allowing you to customize at scale that perhaps you weren't able to do before uh the machine learning came into play. It's just interesting. So it's because typically when people think of biotech agit they think of uh sort of more more traditional uh uh forms of technology but it's interesting to hear that you have found applications for machine learning especially when it comes to customizing to your customers specific u problem. So, and I'm I'm sure you're only getting started because the technology is maturing very fast. So, with each passing year, there's uh sort of new capabilities that I'm sure you'd be adding moving forward. So, I I'll be following your LinkedIn page to see what you're up to next.

[00:26:47]>> Yeah. And that gives us like uh more precise in term uh in terms of uh how to solve the issues um faster and very targeted for our customers.

[00:26:59]Yeah, I mean that that's I think a great use of technology in the right direction as opposed to just uh prompting GPT with write this email for me. So it's good to know that there's applica that there's real world application that you're already using beyond just the the basics. Um now I'm sort of switching gears here a little bit and and talking about so we've talked about business we've talked about the region we've talked about the larger uh opportunity in the market but u u one thing is that vidushi has been talking about you for ages now but we connected in school >> yes >> so and this is something that vidushi and I working in our line of work also realized that when you become a parent work uh there's an additional layer to the work that you're doing in terms of the sense of responsibility and in the sense of uh the work life balance and things of that nature. So can you maybe talk about >> being a founder and being a parent and managing both at the same time and uh what what has that journey taught you as a founder as well?

[00:28:03]>> Yeah. Yeah. So I think um uh one thing is we have to look at our um our uh capability and we we need to really lay out our own you know people have we we have our own schedule. We know like our calendar, you know, you we all have 30 days in a month. It's all the same. But it's just uh how we have that a moment just to sit down and lay out your calendar, your capability to put in your your work schedule, your family schedule. I think we all can lay out this. It just a matter how are you going to do it. I think that's one thing I really look at like okay three days I'm gonna do this for my family four days I'm gonna do this for work after this hour is going to be work hour I think uh you you learn yourself you know yourself best and of course uh you are not alone you you have your team you try to get support for from other people I think don't be hesitate to ask for help so I think when you work with your team your team you understand them and you select the team that understand you. I think this is the dynamics. It's like you also you have your partner, you know your partner, your partner knows you. I think it's the dynamics of working out together as a team. That's very important.

[00:29:26]>> Yeah, that's that's a great insight and this is something that we also find that having good people around us both the team at work and the team at home.

[00:29:33]>> Yes. So it it it helps to have that support system around and obviously >> there's there's other things that parenting teaches you in terms of patience and things that uh you can then apply to your work life as well.

[00:29:47]>> Yeah, it's similar to when we teach our kids like everything the kids see and learn they they try to mimic the parents, right? So yeah, in in the company we we try to show them um example. I try to have this leadership role to to show to them how this is going to work. So we work as a team as I mentioned uh earlier we we encourage um employees to not just to be alone and work on their own and uh when we work as a team uh of course you will see the ability of each employee will have different skills of learning. So you we it's like each of the kids we we have to have the way to actually train them, teach them. So we adjust um how how we how we operate or or train them based on their um learning style. I think that is one of the keys to really um train your employees and you see who's going to be the talent who is going to be someone that you you keep in the company because that is a talent for your your growth.

[00:31:01]>> Thanks for sharing that perspective. Now you've come a long way since you started uh and there's I'm sure you are envisioning a a much longer way to go.

[00:31:12]So can you maybe tell us about some of the key milestones or projects or goals you're working towards at UNIF or any interesting announcements that you have for us?

[00:31:22]>> Yes. So now uh yeah it's been a great journey for us since our seed round and we have been growing uh more. We have uh we have expanded the team from you know just you know a few people now we have more than 20 people and we have sal team across you know um Southeast Asia, Asia Pacific and going to South Asia you know in um India and the five countries uh around in in Southeast in South Asia Nepal Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Pakistan.

[00:31:54]So I think it it's been a great journey uh within this two years of the seed funding and now we are moving into our pre-air round funding. So uh and and again we when we look at our market we are capturing now uh you know not just Asia Pacific we are going to South Asia >> we are also extend to GCC the Gulf region. So I think with this uh market potential uh we are reaching out to investors across as I mentioned um yeah investors need to understand our market potential right so um yeah at the beginning when we are just starting we we were just um at the seat ground yeah the investor group might be just specific to the region uh Thailand or Southeast Asia Asia Pacific but now we go we reaching out to investors across to see that we are scaling we are reaching the global scale. I think this is uh where we see UniFi is going to you know um uh have to get into the pre-air and uh going into the global market.

[00:33:03]>> Oh that's first of all congratulations on that. Um and maybe even taking a step back and looking at it as somebody who calls Thailand home. We we always see brands and companies and startups being imported into Thailand. So it's always very it makes me happy as an individual as well to see Thai startups and brands and uh companies expanding u outside of Thailand not just regionally but uh even like you said uh the the South Asia or even GCC parts of the world. So it just makes me happy to hear that and and I congratulate you on that that my wishing you all the best and rooting for you to succeed in those markets as well.

[00:33:46]Um there's one quick question I had uh maybe I should have asked this earlier is can you tell us uh a bit about the naming of Unifi and how that came to be?

[00:33:56]Oh yeah. I I think yeah it's when we started it's it's we want to cover we want to kind of cover the aspect of the fate application or our our technology application to be you know from farm free food and beyond that is animal health and you know in the future we are going to uh human health. So it's actually unique based unique phage based solution.

[00:34:23]>> Okay. So for food that is F the first F is food animal is the A >> uh food animal human safety. Yeah. So interesting.

[00:34:38]>> Okay. That that's a great approach to naming is sort of future proofing your name as well. So >> to to cover the vision that you have for the future as well. So yeah that's >> I think that brings us to the end of our conversation. Uh K. It has been pleasure getting to know your work. Um and uh it's something that's very interesting and in a field that I feel is very needed at this point. So I congratulate you on the journey you've covered so far. We wish you all the best for what's next and uh we'll hopefully have more of these conversations online, offline, in PTA meetings.

[00:35:13]>> Thank you.

[00:35:14]>> Yeah, I appreciate you taking the time.

[00:35:15]Uh do you have any uh quick message to people who are listening before we uh log out for the day? Uh yeah I think um when you come up with the technology whether you are your background is you know scientists researchers or your background is from business I think these technologies um needs to really align to the customers so uh we would like to have to adopt the technology based on um the customer's need or what you know the customer requires. So I think uh part of our journey is like we are very customer centric. We we really focus on how we can uh solve the problems of our customers. And if if if you just keep listening to them, you get the next version of your technology. You can you know uh move very fast once the you get this insight directly from your customers. That is >> awesome. Yeah, that that's one advice that a lot of people talk about but not everybody implements it. So I I hope people listening especially some of the early stage startups understand that being customer ccentric uh and if if you can really walk the talk on being customercentric it sort of solves half your problems as a company any so yeah that's a great message to end our conversation on. I appreciate taking the time and uh I hope we we see you in a future episode once uh perhaps even in India.

[00:36:45]>> So yes, thanks for your time. Uh thanks to everybody who tuned in. U if you like the episode, make sure to subscribe and we will see you in the next one.