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Danny Lewis: All right time to get some groceries. If you look closely at the ingredients listed on most food packaging you'll find a few variations on the phrase bioengineered food. Let's see, contains bioengineered food ingredients. It's got a bioengineered logo right at the top. Derived from bioengineering. Contains bioengineered food ingredients. Bioengineered. Contains a bioengineered food ingredient. And what do you know, bioengineered. Earlier this year the United States Department of Agriculture put new rules into effect that require all foods that have been genetically modified or include GMO ingredients to be labeled as bioengineered. But soon, a new class of genetically altered food could be making its way onto grocery shelves. Food that's been altered using a gene editing tool called CRISPR. And proponents say it could make the food we eat taste better and be healthier.

Tom Adams: We found a relative of kale that has nutritional value like kale but it itself didn't taste great and we've removed the negative flavor and created something that eats like a lettuce that has really high nutritional value.

Danny Lewis: That's Tom Adams, the CEO of Pairwise, a startup that is working to bring these new gene edited foods to supermarket shelves. Adam says, unlike most GMOs, his products only have genes that naturally occur in their species. Ponsi Trivisvavet is the CEO of Inari, which is developing crops that grow better without as much water or farmland. She says genetic engineering with CRISPR is like hitting the fast forward button on conventional crop breeding, just removing the time and guesswork from developing new varietals. And she believes that is critical for feeding a world altered by climate change.

Ponsi Trivisvavet: What we know for sure is we can't predict what's going to happen. So would we like to actually solve the sustainability benefit in our lifetime or would we give it to our next generations to solve it?

Danny Lewis: From the Wall Street Journal, this is the Future of Everything. I'm Danny Lewis. Today, we're bringing you a conversation from the Global Food Forum in June where Trivisvavet and Adams discussed the future of food with WSJ Chicago Bureau Chief Joanna Chung. That's after the break. And now here's the Wall Street Journal's Joanna Chung speaking with Tom Adams and Ponsi Trivisvavet. We've edited their conversation for time and clarity.

Joanna Chung: You both work in the gene editing business, but companies like Monsanto, Syngenta have been doing this in selling genetically modified crops for decades, right? So Ponzi, I mean, can you explain the difference between gene edited foods and what we've had for decades already?

Ponsi Trivisvavet: In a simple term, the definition of the GMO or genetically modified is essentially you insert the foreign gene into different species into the crop itself. And the gene editing that we are doing here is essentially how do you unlock the full potential of existing species? So there's no insertion of the foreign gene, you try to actually take the existing genome and then make it express better. So that's essentially the definition of the gene editing. And there are quite a bit of pipeline of the products that are going to come out within the next one to three years. So, that's the definition.

Joanna Chung: So Ponsi, Tom, and the rest of the industry, I think are working to persuade people, consumers, all of us that gene edited foods are different than traditional GMOs. And I'm not sure that everyone buys that. How do you Tom overcome the skepticism?

Tom Adams: Well, we've started off by focusing on traits in crops that create benefits for the consumer themselves. So really one of the challenges of GMOs when we talk about them is we really did things in corn and soybean and fed it to pigs and chickens and cows and cars and not the people. So people couldn't really identify with the benefit that they created themselves. So, when we started Pairwise, we put our own effort into developing consumer crops. So, our first product that we'll be launching next year is a new type of leafy green. We recognize that people are looking for healthier salads, but it tends to be that they talk about kale but then they eat romaine lettuce, which doesn't have a lot of nutritional value.

Joanna Chung: So you're targeting basically like taste basically?

Tom Adams: We found a relative of kale that has nutritional value like kale, but it itself didn't taste great and we've removed the negative flavor and created something that eats like a lettuce that has really high nutritional value. So we're giving the consumer a benefit and we're following with other products.

Joanna Chung: So, your approach is to overcome the skepticism by trying to convince people that-

Tom Adams: By giving them something that they will enjoy.

Ponsi Trivisvavet: Yeah. For us is actually the other end of it. We focus the big crops, on the soy, the corn, the wheat. But the targets for us is actually pretty much three things. One, is how do we reduce the amount of land, second is to reduce the amount water and then third is to reduce amount of nitrogen fertilizer. This technology has such a huge potential when it comes into the sustainability and how we think about it is the current technology when it comes to developing the seeds, going back to my explanation earlier that GMOs insert for foreign gene. So what happened? You could do only one gene at a time, because it's foreign gene. At max you could do this two or three, but the issue is this problem of increasing the yield to reduce the land, the water and fertilizer, all of these are complex. So absolutely there's no way that you can touch only one foreign gene and then identify one gene and fix it. For us is actually the best way to solve is coming to the gene editing, you can touch more natural genes at the same time, so you can get into the true, full potential of the seed. So that's what we are focusing on for us is about sustainability.

Joanna Chung: So proponents like both of you, I mean, I can understand the arguments targeting taste, nutritional value, purported benefits for higher yield and using less resources. But, critics would say that there are concerned about health, environmental, ethical concerns. What concerns, Tom, do you think among those are most valid in your view and what are you doing to address it? Why do you do this work?

Tom Adams: It turns out the majority of consumers are not negative about technology and food, in fact, I think the younger consumers are the more excited they are about new types of foods. It's probably 30% of consumers are actually fairly excited about new opportunities and they're looking for new things. It's about 20% that aren't going to like it no matter what. And then there's the whole group in the middle. So we're really working towards identifying those who are going to be favorable towards the food-

Joanna Chung: And the group in the middle?

Tom Adams: And they'll help bring the group in the middle. And then where you start with any technology is you're not just trying to do the technology, we're trying to address a problem. And frankly, I don't know, there's 200 people here, 20 of you probably on average eat the recommended amounts of fruits and vegetables. So we're trying to take away the barriers for the other 180 of us that don't eat the amount of fruits and vegetables that we're supposed to, by making it easier to eat fruits and vegetables and shift some of the diet and snack-ability of products to be things that are healthy rather than the things that are mass marketed that are not that healthy.

Joanna Chung: So Ponsi, what about unintended consequences, whether it's for the health or the environment, are you not at all concerned?

Ponsi Trivisvavet: So this comes into play that in reality, just to be in the gene editing area, whether you like it or not, the technology itself cannot have the full potential without machine learning and AI. And for us, it's the responsibility as a company when we develop the product, so the part of how do you actually make sure that you sequence everything beforehand and then once you're done you actually sequence it again. And then you look at it in a greenhouse and then you look at it in the field again and so on. So the kind of thing that you have to be responsible, that this is not a simple thing that you do it in the kitchen. It's actually pretty complex. So it's responsibility of the operators there.

Joanna Chung: (inaudible)-

Tom Adams: I think if I could add.

Joanna Chung: Yeah of course.

Tom Adams: I think one of the things that's important to recognize is what we're doing really builds on what we would call conventional breeding. When Ponsi says we're using natural genes and the things that are already in the crop. In fact, the variation that we're typically making with the CRISPR tools is something that you can find somewhere within that species. So we're accelerating bringing these things together, we're not creating something that wasn't there before-

Joanna Chung: It could just see me, but like when I hear them at your per up, because I'm, it sounds a little bit like marketing because it isn't that you're mating two plants in a greenhouse. I mean, it is different.

Tom Adams: You could accomplish the same thing much slower by mating two plants in a greenhouse.

Ponsi Trivisvavet: So if I could build on what Tom said. So things that we are doing actually can happen by nature. The question is, do we have, one lifetime or do we have 10 lifetimes or do we have 100 lifetimes or do we have 2 lifetimes and the answer is 1. So if we want to solve the problem of the food system and if we want to solve the problem of sustainability of the nutrition, we just can't wait for the nature to get into that point. That's what we are trying to solve.

Joanna Chung: The regulators in this situation with gene editor foods seem pretty much convinced because it doesn't seem like they will be regulating gene edited foods as closely as he did traditional GMOs. So I guess my question is, we should be able to like precisely and quickly make these products and I'm wondering why there hasn't been a big blockbuster product already yet.

Tom Adams: I think what's important is our regulatory system is focused on regulating the product. So the piece that's important for us to demonstrate is that the product is the same as a product that would've come from a traditional breeding. If not, it would have some of the extra pre-market regulatory requirements that any other GMO product would have. So, there is an onus on us to demonstrate that it's something that could have been developed. And that makes sense that it's the product that's regulated, not the way that you make the product. Europe calls everything, whether it's breeding or not, they call it GMO. And then they give certain things an exemption from pre-market regulations if they've been done for a long time. There's a lot of, I'd say positive movement that in fact, things like the war in Ukraine and some of the food prices and recognition of their needs to deal with climate, people are calling out that gene editing is one of the solutions.

Danny Lewis: After the break. Why haven't genetically engineered foods gone mainstream yet? Stick around.

Joanna Chung: If it's so fast and precise to use, the science itself, why don't we have a big blockbuster product out there that everyone's familiar with already?

Ponsi Trivisvavet: It will be. It will be within the next one to four years. So traditional breeding, how long does it take right? 7 to 12 years. GMO, how long does it take? 16 years. So therefore it is about to come up with the prime time and I believe that absolutely, within the next five years, you're going to see quite a lot more of those. So it's coming.

Joanna Chung: Can you tell us a little bit, Tom, about your salads? I mean, are there other exciting sort of near term applications?

Tom Adams: Yeah. As I mentioned, we will be launching our first product next year and we expect it to be a reasonably sized product. A couple years behind that we're making a blackberry that doesn't have any seeds. And then as we're working on creating stone fruit, that don't have stones, so cherries without pits. But also to reduce the size of a cherry tree, so that can grow more like a bush. So we can get them out of one climatic region in Washington State where we grow all the cherries, but be able to move them to other parts of the world and be more resilient with climate changes and so on. So a number of changes like that are coming, they're going to take time for all of them to come out, but they will all occur much faster than they would've occurred with a traditional breeding path.

Joanna Chung: Ponsi are there any near term exciting, you said a few years?

Ponsi Trivisvavet: For us, it's the yield to make use of land and essentially have the crops to have proper architecture. Like for example, soybeans. The soybeans that can have more pots per node, more seeds for plant and heavier seed weight. That's essentially the kind of example of the architecture products that are coming.

Joanna Chung: Okay. I'd like to turn to the consumer part of things again, because at the end of the day it comes down to like, are they going to eat this stuff? Are they not going to eat this stuff? So will we even know like when we're at the grocery store that we're running into this technology, like when we're shopping will we even know that's what we're buying?

Tom Adams: I mean, this is one of the nice things about produce is that we're planning to sell things fresh and they're not all mixed together with ingredients. So it's a little bit different than some of the corn and soybean where things get mixed in with everything. So we're creating a brand-

Joanna Chung: Will they be labeled beyond that though?

Tom Adams: We're still working out the exact approach to labeling, but our intention is to be transparent about technology. The title isn't going to be gene edited foods, but we're not going to hide from that. Our marketing team is working on. We'll certainly have a QR code where you can go to get much more detail, but we recognize that not everybody is going to follow that QR code so we want people to be aware of what it is that we're selling them, but it's not required to be labeled as bioengineered like a GMO product is, but we're looking for ways to transparently communicate the technology that's behind it.

Joanna Chung: So Ponsi, when people go shopping again, how do you get consumers to bet on this technology?

Ponsi Trivisvavet: Yeah. I'll actually switch it and say that we know that the issue of the climate change, the issue of the food system are not going to go away and it's not linear and it has been proven over the past two and a half years. What we know for sure is we can predict what's going to happen so would we like to actually solve the sustainability benefit in our lifetime or would we give it to our next generations to solve it? And that would be the part that we still need to have a dialogue and it's going to be ongoing and that's reality that it's not going to be overnight.

Joanna Chung: So let me ask you this in terms of, again, the consumer. The topic of inflation is pervasive right now. For many consumers, especially with inflation these days, ultimately what they care about is price and they just want to buy the least expensive. Maybe it is more nutritious, maybe it is better for them. How do you compete with that? And I wonder, is it only for people with like more disposable income who could maybe afford these products in the middle?

Tom Adams: Our expectation is we'll be pricing the products in the range that's currently where things are sold. There's a fairly broad range of salad pricing for instance and we're not going to be at the bottom of that range, but we won't be at the very top either. So I think we're trying to be practical about how the farmers need to make money and we can't take all the money away from the farmer and we can't take money away from other parts of the supply chain either. So I think ultimately though it's not going to be a product that's charging 25% more than everything else in the supermarket, it'll be within the range that we see everything else charged.

Joanna Chung: Okay. I mean, does this technology mean that the seeds for farmers will be cheaper as well or does it not automatically mean that?

Ponsi Trivisvavet: So if you really look at, I was sharing earlier that the development of the GMO is what, 16 years, right? So costing roughly around $130 million per product. Then when you come into this technology, we're talking about 1/3 of the time and we are talking about 1/10th of the cost. So yes, absolutely, in terms of cost development will come down significantly. But more importantly is the performance that these technology can give will be radical compared to the existing technology, which certainly would go up into the benefit of the farmers there. Whereby you don't have the yield goes up without using more water, more resources. Ultimately is how do we get the benefits to the farmers at the end?

Joanna Chung: Tom, I just wanted to go back to a grocery store for a second. Could you give us a little glimpse into what kind of conversations you've been having with retailers and others that you are trying to get this product to? How does that work?

Tom Adams: So we've been talking with people throughout the supply chain because we're partnering with people in the middle that are doing the packer shipper piece and we have been having conversations as well with early conversations with some retailers. And the salad is this sort of sea of sameness and produce is a really important part of bringing people into the grocery store. So there's a lot of excitement about new novel types of products that can give consumers new reasons to come into the store. So, we found enthusiasm about it. The proof will be next year as we start to really sell it. But you're already starting to see a little bit of branding of strawberries and things like this, where people are differentiating products in produce. And I think we're going to see a lot more choices and a lot more opportunity for people when they're reaching for a snack to reach for something that's healthy and beneficial rather than something that just fills them up.

Danny Lewis: That was Pairwise CEO, Tom Adams, and Inari CEO Ponsi Trivisvavet speaking with Wall Street Journal Chicago Bureau Chief Joanna Chung at our Global Food Forum in June. We want to hear from you. Would you eat foods that have been gene edited with CRISPR? Why or why not? Do you see any difference between that and older types of GMOs? Let us know. We're on Twitter at WSJ Podcasts. The Future of Everything is a production of the Wall Street Journal. Stephanie Elgin Fritz is the editorial director of the future of everything. This episode was produced by me, Danny Lewis. Jessica Fenton is our sound designer. Scott Saloway is our supervising producer. And Kateri Jochum is the Wall Street Journal's executive producer of audio. Thanks for listening.