Ofek Ron
On Protein Production Technology Podcast
“When we tried to scale up the machine and started to make it more automated and complicated, we should just have taken what we did and tweaked it a bit and another bit, and not tried to restructure the whole thing and make something completely different that should do 10x in production. Doing it in smaller steps, but faster steps, and trying to do the simplest thing is what I will take. Simplify, simplify, simplify.”
Protein Production Technology Podcast · Alternative Proteins · November 2026
Context
Asked about scaling the fish-forming machine, the part he says the company has struggled with most. He explains the lesson from an earlier attempt to scale through a large redesign.
Transcript
…texture of a fish fillet. And from the beginning, we knew we're going to do a machine, but we didn't imagine that that would be the machine. And we pivoted along the way toward that technology, which is called modular layering technology that we have patents on. So you can definitely read about it.
You've admitted there are engineering decisions you'd make very differently today without giving away anything proprietary. What did you learn about building machinery that you simply couldn't have known when you started?
It's a good question because that's the part we struggle the most. Okay, why I'm saying struggle the most? Because the machine we invented a few years ago, we tried to scale it, to scale it. We still didn't manage to scale it. And what happened is now we just produced a big set of machines so we can overcome the demand we're just getting from Whole Foods and others. And I have to say that simplify, simplify, simplify, simplify. That's what I learned. You know, when we try to scale up the machine and we started to make it more automated and complicated, we should just take what we did and tweak it a bit and another bit and another bit and not trying to, you know, restructure the whole thing and try to make something that is completely different than what we have, but should do 10x in production. I think that doing it in smaller steps, but faster steps and trying to do the simplest thing, the simplest things is what I will take.
You've also talked about bringing the production cost of a fillet down from roughly $40, I think it was, to around $6. So what changed to make that possible? And how much further does the cost still need to come down, do you think?
Yeah, so we need to take the cost three times more than what it is today. And it's hopefully going to happen in the last quarter of this year. So we're now building a production facility in Brazil. It's not going to be ours. It's our partner's facility. But there, the plan is to take the cost down…
Well, if it works for Apple, then I'm sure it can work for you. Now, you've been pretty open about the fact that the machinery wasn't the only area where you learned as you went. You've said some of the hardest lessons haven't been about the product, but the people. So what has building OSHI taught…
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