Investment Climate Podcast

Oliver Fuss (FoodFunder) sits down with Michael "Tony" Grinston — 16th Sergeant Major of the Army (2019–2023) and CEO of Army Emergency Relief — for Episode 1 of Dual Use: Agri-Food × Army.

The U.S. Army spends billions each year on food, materials, and biotech, yet most agri-food startups have no clear path in. This conversation opens that gap: what the Army actually needs from feeding and readiness, how change gets funded and scaled, and how founders can engage without wasting cycles on the wrong doors.

Topics include:
• Why fuel (not just fitness) is the missing readiness piece — and how DFAC modernization became a signal of how far feeding ops had to move
• Campus-style dining as a live garrison model (choice, quality, off-DFAC operators)
• How Army initiatives actually scale: champion + POM budget + accountable leadership
• What soldiers adopt in the field: taste first, then performance, then emergency rations — and why weight/cube matter in contested logistics
• Practical founder engagement: AUSA/LANPAC and logistics/food shows, innovation labs on large posts, and bringing real problem data

Guest: Michael "Tony" Grinston — 16th SMA; CEO, Army Emergency Relief (from Jan 2024); first former NCO to lead AER. Signature feeding/readiness pushes include campus-style dining, DFAC modernization, Go for Green, and Holistic Health & Fitness (H2F).

Host: Oliver · FoodFunder
Series: Dual Use — Agri-Food × Army
Distribution: Food Tech Weekly / Investment Climate Podcast

Links:
• Army Emergency Relief: https://www.armyemergencyrelief.org/
• FoodFunder: https://foodfunder.com/
• Food Tech Weekly: https://news.foodtechweekly.com/

Live from The Drop 2026 with Mark Kahn (Managing Partner, Omnivore), Divya Murthy (Principal, Oyster Bay Venture Capital), and Tomas Turner (CEO & Co-founder, Cosaic).
We dig into how AgriFoodTech founders and investors are actually raising and deploying today, funds under management, what still works in a tough market, and the human side of private capital: connect before business, chase excellence over money, and why CEOs should still talk to VCs after a raise.
Guests:
Mark Kahn: Omnivore (Global South agrifood VC)
Divya Murthy: Oyster Bay (European early-stage agri-food)
Tomas Turner: Cosaic (yeast fermentation / clean-label ingredients)
Hosted by Alex Shandrovsky · Investment Climate Podcast · FoodTech Weekly
Want me to put this on the episode as-is, or tweak tone/length first?

Guillaume Béland of Zone Agtech walks through Quebecs “City of Ag & Food Tech industrial land near Montreal, cheap hydro power, and a third/third/third funding model with government and banks. He explains how founders can shift facility CapEx into leases/OpEx, tap R&D supports via the innovation complex (labs ~Jan 2027), and set up a Montreal HQ without moving IP. Alex and Guillaume cover fit criteria, visas, timelines, and the top deal-breakers: offtake, regulation, and supply.

Adam Tarshis, co-founder and CEO of Mozza Foods, joins Alex Shandrovsky on the Investment Climate podcast.

Mozza is a molecular farming company engineering soybeans to produce authentic dairy casein — the protein that makes cheese melt and stretch — as a drop-in ingredient for dairy manufacturers, without cows and without building precision-fermentation factories.

In this episode: why molecular farming beats bioreactors for cost parity, funding deep tech in food when capital is scarce, infrastructure and regulation paths (USDA/FDA), and what it takes to get soybean-grown casein to market (target launch late 2028).

Guest: Adam Tarshis, Co-founder & CEO, Mozza Foods
Host: Alex Shandrovsky

Media partners: vegconomist · Food Tech Weekly
Book a conversation: https://cal.com/foodtechweekly/1-1-call

In this episode, I sit down with Javed Husain, Founder & CEO of Totaleehalal — the UK's halal-only food delivery marketplace for restaurants, groceries, and meat, built around strict halal assurance (HMC-certified positioning) so Muslim consumers aren't guessing what's on the plate.

Javed came out of advertising/media and bootstrapped Totaleehalal after an exit rather than raising a classic VC round. We get into why he built a 100% halal marketplace instead of sitting on existing delivery apps, how certification and contamination controls actually work in food delivery, the London rollout (West/East) and path to broader UK coverage, and what kind of capital — if any — fits a values-driven, assurance-first consumer marketplace.

🎧 Listen for the bootstrap story, the halal-assurance ops playbook, and what support Totaleehalal needs next from the Food Tech Weekly community.

Key Facts: Totaleehalal
Javed Husain (Founder & CEO)
Based: London, UK
What they do: Halal-only food delivery marketplace (restaurants, groceries, fresh meat) with strict certification / no non-halal contamination; charity pledge in launch coverage.