Ofek Ron On Protein Production Technology Podcast

“We met the buyers of Whole Foods in March at Expo West. On the spot they said, let's launch it in a few months. Let's plan for August. August turned to December. Then: the certification of your factory is not a certification that Whole Foods is accepting. One of your ingredients is a new ingredient for Whole Foods, you're using mycoprotein, we need to approve it. It was very stressful along the way.”

Protein Production Technology Podcast · Alternative Proteins · November 2026

Context

Asked about the road to a Whole Foods launch. He describes a retail deal agreed quickly in principle that slipped by months as factory and ingredient certifications came up.

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Transcript

Protein Production Technology Podcast Around 28:37 into the episode

Ofek Ron

…the opposite. You know, you know, there is a conversation you need to do, and you just tell to yourself, I don't want to do it again, and you delay it because you remember how hard it was back then. But the other part of you is like, You already done it, you can do it, you can do it, you can do it.

Nick Bradley

I think we reported on this a month or so ago. Maybe, maybe more Whole Foods market have selected your salmon and your whitefish for launch this December, I believe. Um, so what does that mean to you personally after everything it's taken to get there?

Ofek Ron

So, first of all, uh, starting the company, my dream was Whole Foods. You know, for me, it was my favorite supermarket in the world. I was traveling to the US. For me, getting into Whole Foods, it's like going to Disneyland. You know, I'm going there, I'm like, wow. So, for me, being there is like a dream. I started in a small town in Israel, thinking of Whole Foods in the US is like, you know, not practical even. So, it was always a dream. And, you know, making this dream becoming soon a reality is wow. Okay. And to tell you about the process, so it's very funny, but actually, we launched our retail product in March and we met the buyers of Whole Food in March. We already talked with them a bit before the launch, but in March, we met at Expo West in California. And on the spot, they were like, okay, let's launch it in a few months. And we, what? Let's plan for August. August turned to December, as you see, because we had some we can speak about the process. So they said August. Like, oh my God, yeah, August. Till it actually came to the table and they seriously started to make the official process with us. We need to send samples and we need to file tons of documents. And so then…

Nick Bradley

That's going to be a Christmas present for lots of people, hopefully. Now, they're getting onto those shelves. That's one battle, but staying there, I guess that's the harder, the harder one. So what do you guys have to prove once those products actually arrive in Whole Foods? Yeah,

Ofek Ron

so first of all, we need to share. We're already in the market. We have a bunch of chains that are already carrying the product, which is Earthfair, Town and Country, Bristol Farms, LaSense, Clarks, and a few others. Okay. So, and we're just next week getting into Hy-Vee to 125 stores, which is one…

Nick Bradley

Another huge change for you has been geographical. So you started in Israel, we know that, but you've now relocated full-time to the USA and you're building the business from there. Now, Oshi has grown up during a really extraordinary period for Israel. Has that changed the way that you think about…

Speaker names come from our own diarization. The position is estimated from where the line sits in the episode.

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