Q1. What experience does your team have concerning plant-based meat? Which partnership in business and sponsorships do you have in general and plant-based meat in particular?
Plant-Based Meat does not simply extract protein from plants such as soybeans. In fact, it is premised on health, taste, texture, aroma and even the roast of meat, so that it is as good as animal protein meat. Therefore, Plant-Based Meat is a collection of new technologies and food science itself. It is based on the decomposition and analysis of animal meat’s molecular constituents to maximize the texture, flavor and taste. To achieve this, we combine molecular biology, synthetic biology, and biotechnology.
ATFS is currently carrying out technology transfers with the Korean Agency for Agricultural Development and the Institution of Agricultural Research and Development, and pursuing academic and technical cooperation with leading food engineering laboratories and nutrition professors in Korea.
In addition, the acquisition of relevant patents is already underway, and we are in the process of recruiting experienced researchers from domestic food corporations and Buddhist temple food experts. After our crowdsale, we will establish a technical research institute with the recruited members and more. (Please note and understand that individuals have already joined us, but we cannot disclose due to conflict of interest.)
We are thrilled to be working with Buddhist temple food experts, because of centuries-old Buddhist cuisine that provide alternative protein sources through tofu, mushrooms and more. With data and recipes from this diet combined with molecular biology and nutritional studies, we expect to come to new conclusions that would bring us one step closer to the commercialization and mass production of plant-based meat.
Q2. How would you achieve a borderless marketplace due to various national regulations?
We agree that creating a borderless market is not easy due to the national regulations, but it is a direction that ATFS must pursue since it has also never been achieved before.
The Disruptive Decentralized Platform will start by supplying local agricultural products within a territory category according to the region’s demand. The DDP will be able to analyze and determine demand and source of origin based on local agricultural enterprises and individual sellers’ data linked on the blockchains. ATFS bases its primary sales product group on our smart farm output and plant-based meat, but we believe that different territory strategies are needed to address the diversity of agricultural products and food options of each region.
In the early years of our business (until 2020) ATFS’s strategic focus is the East Asian region.
This is based on our targeted market entry into the premium salad market. For our premium salad selections to be successful, we need to be close to cities with over half a million in population. We launch DDP and Smart Farm 2.0 in these regions with more than USD $25,000 per capita GDP, because there is a higher demand for higher quality and environmentally-friendly salads.
Currently, there are 1009 such cities around the world, with 132 in North America, 144 in Europe, and 532 in Asia. (Resource: Demographia Apr. 2017). In particular, East Asian mega cities like Tokyo and Seoul are forming a dietary-related market with more than USD $300 trillion combined.
It is predicted that other regions will be a fit for ATFS’s business as the trend in urbanization will continue as explained in the white paper. Therefore, after 2020, ATFS plans to strategically enter different territory categories, and ultimately become borderless one day.