Superfood To The Rescue

Welcome back Food Junglers. It’s been a while since I’ve posted an interview here, but that is all about to change.

I’d like to introduce Peter Henderson, a dear friend of mine and someone who is on a mission to solve food insecurity around the world by distributing a protein-rich, snack bar that’s made with the newest superfood out there: spirulina. Here, I find out more about his company - E2G FOOD - his philosophy, and his future plans. Let’s dig in.

Hey Peter, it’s lovely to have you. Let’s begin with you telling us a little about yourself and how you started E2G FOOD (EAT-2-GROW).

Hi Gregory, thank you for having me. Long story short, I was an international news cameraman who has travelled to 156 countries, witnessing history unfold in front of me on a daily basis. One thing I witnessed, was many stories where people were often displaced, upset, hungry and cold. And I thought it might be important to find a product that would alleviate hunger.

I always thought if I could find a way to feed people more efficiently, that would be an immediate band-aid to hunger, which would make many lives around the world a little better, as a result.

Were you worried about inexperience in the food industry?

When I landed in Mogadishu in Somalia on a light aircraft, having flown in from Kenya, I immediately thought about how welcoming all the locals were, because they were helping us unload the airplane and take our bags to the airport terminal. When we got into the terminal, we realised we had no bags. Our bags were stolen. And the reason they were stolen was not because they were thieves, but because they were hungry. We were flying in from Kenya with ration packs, which had all been stolen.

I didn’t need to have experience in the food industry to see that something was wrong here.

So, you approached this from a purely humanitarian perspective?

Yeah, so people with no food are going to die. Simple as that. You can have food, but if you have the wrong food, it’s just as bad.

I looked at the World Food Programme and how they dropped 25 kg of maize and grain from the back door of planes. You had to collect it, find water, make a fire, find plates and knives and forks if the crate didn’t kill you on the way down.

And once you ate it, you felt good for a period of time, but frankly it’s just a carbohydrate spike. There’s no goodness whatsoever.

Food Jungle’s mission is to highlight everything that is going on in the food industry, from the good all the way to the bad. And while much focus is placed on negativity, I feel that E2G is a great example of a new kind of food that is extremely helpful for the planet.

Having been a journalist, I recognised there was a problem with feeding the world and I recognised there was an opportunity to have future food that was sustainable, vegetarian, halal, high in protein and basically something that could be impactful. So, we came up with ingredients after 11 recipes, looking at spirulina (a superfood algae which can grow anywhere in the world).

And if you add spirulina to oats, chai seeds, peanut butter, and other ingredients, you suddenly get a protein bar that’s 500 calories with 30 grams of protein that can sustain life.

So, I went and I met with ambassador to Cindy McCain (John McCain’s wife) and we talked about the war in Ukraine and we talked about feeding the world with old traditional ways of feeding and very quickly we recognised that we need a better way of feeding people. It’s no use sending crates of grain into the middle of the desert. We need to find product that we can grow locally and feed locally, while being vegetarian.

Would you be able to explain to our readers why having a vegetarian food bar is important?

Well, we can’t keep getting protein from animal products because it’s completely unsustainable and affects the environment very negatively. But, more importantly, it’s not affordable.

A normal person in a Third World country cannot afford to slaughter a chicken or a cow to get protein. We need plant-based protein and one of the best ways to do that is through spirulina or microalgae, a hugely impactful superfood, which could be better than the protein you get from an animal.

You transport these bars to conflict zones all around the world, from Gaza to Ukraine. How did you manage to organise that? Particularly in Gaza where it has been extremely difficult to get food across to civilians.

Israel has been using food as a weapon. As much as it upsets me, that is the reality. The Palestinians are literally eating grass, so it is important to feed the people there no matter whether you’re from Ethiopia or Palestine.

We got in touch with international operators and friends to cross borders and deliver impactful food to support people locally.  

We have a factory in Dubai, which can produce 300,000 food bars a day. We have the ability to produce food in the UK and, right now, we’re looking at Miami to set up our first US factory to help deal with climate disasters or help veterans get back on their feet.

How does that technically work? How do you get boxes from the factory to some of the most violent places in the world?

One of the biggest problems in the world is accountability. When somebody sends $100 to feed somebody in Kenya, how do you know that that one hundred dollars gets to the person who needs it?

We are currently developing a platform that will allow consumers worldwide to track their donations. We work closely with our local partners on the ground who facilitate the delivery from the factory to the communities.

We’re excited to share more information on our development later this year – stay tuned on our socials and website to hear more on www.e2gfood.com

This smoothly leads me to my next question. Do you see these brilliant food bars going beyond crisis management? Is there a vision for E2G beyond the warzone?

E2G, first and foremost, is a social enterprise and not a charity. That was done on purpose so that we could have a sustainable impact for the long term on a global basis.

The first way we do this is by sending donated FOOD to humanitarian causes around the world, not just war zones. This is our short-term relief providing people with instant nutrition that provides sustained energy - 500 calories and 30 g protein in one 120g bar!

Our second and longer-term impact is developing and implementing spirulina microfarms, designed to support and promote regional production and increase nutrition. Spirulina is a type of microalgae that offers a rich source of essential nutrients, including iron, calcium, and vitamins and provides therapeutic benefits - especially for mothers and children. Due to its remarkable productivity, the plant protein can grow in climate-stressed land, be cultivated in four to five days, and be consumed by or resold into the community.

Each microfarm can provide 500 people with 5g of spirulina per day, resulting in increased long-term health benefits and support against malnutrition. Over the space of a year, one farm can produce up to 150,000 protein supplements – over four years this increases to 600,000 people positively impacted by the nutritional properties of spirulina. This year we have been working with partners to develop the first spirulina microfarm in Harare, Zimbabwe and we are excited for it to support the community.

Why don’t you think some of the biggest companies in the world, PepsiCo or Nestlé, haven’t done something similar to this?  

A lot of it is shareholders and shareholders’ return on their investment. I think big organisations, like Nestlé and KFC, primarily need to be profitable. Of course, with the introduction of ESG initiatives, that is changing. But honestly, from E2G’s point of view, we are probably pioneering an innovative way in which we are able to solve a problem, while giving back at the same time.

Do you fear that you might have to deal with shareholders as well, given that you are a for-profit organisation?

All of our investors are people who’ve done well in their lives or impact investors. The reason for getting involved with us as a company is to make it back and make a difference. Their personal return is not necessarily a financial return, but rather an impact return.

The type of organisation that will ultimately come along and acquire us will realise the importance of behaving well, impacting, and being a considerate company in the food industry with see us as a natural extension of their core responsibility.

When it comes to a building company that’s doing pioneering work, as you said, why sell?

We definitely do not need to sell. We want to encourage people to attach their courage to our journey. I don’t need to have an exit, but you need to tell others to join your journey so that they can benefit from the fact that you are doing good, which then allows them to do well.

If I’m a big brand in America and I wanted to make a difference, I would be making a difference at a grassroots level where I’m changing people’s lives, it’s not costing me money, and it would allow me to do good at the same time as doing well.

I want to go in a slightly different direction and talk about the ingredients of the bar itself. Why did you choose spirulina as the main ingredient?

When I sold my telecom company, I started investing in companies that made a difference. During that journey, I came across a farmer who was growing spirulina. So, we invested $6 million into his company and then we had to figure out what to do with all this green stuff that he produces.

Either through luck, or by default, I discovered a way to feed really hungry people on a mass scale, because growing spirulina is really easy: fill a pond with water, put some micro-nutrients in it, control the pH level, and watch it bloom. You can feed 500 people a day with 5 grams of protein very easily using a $200,000 investment.

Why hasn’t the World Food Programme looked at spirulina in the same way as you have?

They have done and they consider it the food of the future. But people are talking about it and we’re doing it.

Is there a risk where, because of climate change, spirulina can’t be produced to the level at which you want to produce it?

Honestly, spirulina is easy to produce. You need water, sunlight, and a controlled environment and you can make tons and tons of it. I mean the world started with algae. It’s the most sustainable form of survival in the world and we haven’t harnessed that yet.

There is no way we can’t produce enough micro algae to feed ourselves. A human being that has been given 5 grams of spirulina a day is going to get all their daily greens. We really just need to go back to basics and back to nature and we’ll have very healthy ingredients in our bodies.

It’s great to see how such a simple ingredient can be so life changing.

This is by far the most passionate I’ve been about any of my projects, since I can see it having the most impact. The reality is that there are very few important things survival and one of them is food. If you eat well. The biggest opportunity for all of us reading this interview is actually to get involved.

If you can and actually do something, you’re going to really benefit from the impact. And if you’re lucky enough to have that opportunity to make a difference it’s one of the biggest privileges in the world.

What do you think of those adverts you see on TV, then, where they say “a dollar a day” can save a child from starvation. Do you think that creates a sense of apathy?

My argument with this is it’s probably the wrong messaging. It’s about just giving and not supplying. Giving is one thing because your just giving it and it dissipates and disappears. If you basically get involved with each aspect of our business, actively feeding people that’s a whole different ball game. So, instead of the idea of “guilt, support, and disappear”, we try to “feed, grow, and educate local communities”.