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00:00:01
Tim Boote
50 Plays4 years ago
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Transcript
Meet Tim Boot and Protein Rebel
00:00:00
Speaker
Hi everyone, hope you're well and welcome to the UK Sports Chat podcast. On today's episode I am speaking with Tim Boot. Tim is the founder of Protein Rebel, a new nutrition company who uniquely use crickets as their source of protein. I found this a very interesting chat. I hope you do too and enjoy the rest of your week. Have a good weekend and see you on next week's podcast. Welcome Tim.
00:00:31
Speaker
Hello, Joe. How are you? All right, thanks. It's really nice to be here. Good. Thank you for coming on. Thank you for coming on the UK Run Chats podcast. And thank you for, we were in a competition at the moment and you'll be on the hour on Sunday as well, won't you? Yes, we will. Yeah. Looking forward to that, you know, getting to interact with people and hearing what people have got to say about our new products.
00:00:57
Speaker
Okay, so before we talk about protein level, tell us a bit about you and specifically your interest in running cycling.
Tim's Running Passion and Community
00:01:07
Speaker
Yes, sure. Well, for a long time when I was younger, I used to do lots of mountain biking. I really loved the adrenaline of doing that. I wasn't particularly good at it, but I did my best.
00:01:24
Speaker
Then I had a nasty fall like lots of mountain bikers do, broke my collarbone, got a piece of metal put in there and all that sort of stuff.
00:01:34
Speaker
And to be honest, after that, mountain biking was never quite the same for me after that. And, you know, things kind of moved on, got a bit older, got family, and started to do road biking. I'm not really sure that's any safer actually. But, you know, I really enjoy that. And I've got a good group of mates that I managed to get out and do road cycling with.
00:02:04
Speaker
But more recently, over the last couple of years, I've really been getting into running. So a group of dads at the local primary school where my kids go. And we started running two years ago to raise some money.
00:02:22
Speaker
for charity and we haven't really stopped since so we did our marathon we've done a half marathon done lots of kind of 10k events we would have done more but the pandemic got in the way and this year the plan
00:02:40
Speaker
is that we do the Chester triple so that's 10k, half k and marathon and we're thinking about doing snow to marathon at the end of the year as well if everything stays open. Great and what you do that as a Greek do you?
00:02:58
Speaker
Yeah, there's about, there's a little WhatsApp group of us now, there's about 12 of us on it. And we normally meet up at the weekend, Sunday mornings, run locally. And it's just, for us, it's really great just to get out and just talk bloke stuff. You know that sort of feeling. And it's just great to combine that with running as well.
00:03:28
Speaker
Yeah, great. I mean, what you describe in this is your own mini community, isn't it? Your own mini community of runners, which is great. That support makes a big difference, doesn't it? Which marathon did you do? Chester.
00:03:43
Speaker
Chester, yeah. So, I mean, that's local to where we live, you know, where I live. So it was a great one to start off with. Utterly exhausting from my point of view. So I was really chuffed just to get around. But some of the other guys in the groups, they did really well. So yeah, I've got a lot to live up to. Yeah, I like Chester.
00:04:08
Speaker
It's a lovely place, but I've done the half. You start in the horse track. Yeah, that's right. And the finish on the half marathon is in the centre and you've got this steep hill you have to go up at the finish. That's the killer, isn't it? That finishes you off, doesn't it?
00:04:33
Speaker
I think someone really planned that with a sadistic mind. Yeah they did, they were happy with that one.
Inspiration and Sustainability of Protein Rebel
00:04:42
Speaker
So tell us about protein Melbourne and how that came about please. Yeah sure.
00:04:50
Speaker
Well, you know, the story started off quite a few years ago, really, because as well as being into biking and running and kind of general outdoor stuff, you know, hiking, mountaineering, those sorts of things, I've really been interested in wildlife and conservation.
00:05:11
Speaker
So I did a wildlife management masters out in South Africa. And as part of that, I worked in a couple of national parks in Zambia. And it was there that I actually ate insects for the first time. You know, part of the staple diet for the people that live out there.
00:05:37
Speaker
And we basically they were catch caterpillars, chippemies, and which these kind of yellow caterpillars quite big and then dry them in the sun. And then you would mix them up with various sources and eat those. The other thing that they used to do frequently was capture termites. So, you know, those kind of big termite mounds you often see on TV and the African plane. You're the ones that really stick up tall.
00:06:05
Speaker
Yes. So, you know, when it was a full moon, put a bucket of water out and then the termites would fly out of the mound, landing the water, get caught in the surface tension there. And you can put your, after about an hour or so, you can put your hand in those and it'd like be a waterfall of termites cascading through your hand. It was fantastic how many there were.
00:06:30
Speaker
We'd take those back to a hut and fry them up with some salt and pepper. And they were just really tasty as a beer snack. Excellent. And that was kind of like 10 years ago now. Feels like a lifetime. And I never really thought it would be of any use or interest in the West.
00:06:55
Speaker
But roll on, you know, what feels like a whole lifetime and things have changed quite a lot. So along with everyone else, you know, you can see some of the things that are happening because of climate change, you know, the deforestation in the Amazon, the fires going on in Australia and much closer to home, all the flooding.
00:07:18
Speaker
that's happening so you know we're looking for sustainable protein solutions plus from they are really nutritious so they're actually kind of really built for athletes because they've got so many great vitamins and minerals as well as being high in protein so that kind of made me think
00:07:46
Speaker
Right, well, probably there's kind of an opportunity here to combine both the things that I think are important around sustainability and nutrition and develop a product.
00:08:01
Speaker
And that's what we did. We launched it five years, oh five, it's not five years ago, five months ago now. Okay, cool.
Nutritional Benefits of Crickets
00:08:10
Speaker
I've been to Kenya on safari. Yeah. Those termite names are huge. They are massive. Six feet tall, aren't they?
00:08:22
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. They're bigger than me, definitely. I don't know if you can actually go down in them and they're normally as hot, go down as far as they go up. Yeah. So yeah, into the ground so you can crawl down into them if you really want to. Yeah. I'll leave that for real. Okay, so
00:08:50
Speaker
I hear your sustainable message. You mentioned floods. I live in Shropshire and Shrewsbury and we were flooded last week. The town gets completely cut off except for one road. Sadly, we live in a little village in Cheshire and some houses are getting flooded here for the first time ever and they've been there for a couple of hundred years. Yes. I think it's a lot changer.
00:09:20
Speaker
Okay, so tell us more specifically about the product and yeah, so you know, insects there, what insects are in it?
00:09:35
Speaker
What research did you do? How did you get to that point with the product? I did a ton of research because developing a product that was nutritious wanted to make sure that it was actually going to work.
00:09:52
Speaker
So I worked with the University of Chester to help develop a nutritional product that was actually going to help behind protein and help you recover from exercise.
00:10:10
Speaker
What is really good about insects and crickets specifically is that they are really like a little superfood package built for athletes. So not only are they high in protein, so they have twice as much protein in as beef, for example.
00:10:29
Speaker
They're also high in vitamin B12, which you need for cell connectivity to make sure that you're getting enough energy into your body. So they've got five times more vitamin B12 than beef. They're really high in antioxidants, so more than orange juice.
00:10:54
Speaker
They've got loads of iron in there as well. And on top of all of that, they're prebiotics. So that means that they are very gentle on your stomach. And so you shouldn't get any of the issues that you might get, for example, if you're consuming a whey base drink. Yeah. Yeah. So I've used whey product protein in the past.
00:11:24
Speaker
strip this back for me. What is whey protein versus what's in your product then? Because you can get gut issues with... Yeah, and you know what? I mean, that happened to me as well. So whey is actually a waste product of cheese making. So it's from cows, from dairy, from milk.
00:11:49
Speaker
and I mean it's a fantastic product you know it dominates the protein market and lots of brands use it and lots of people consume it with no issues whatsoever but a significant minority and I'm one of those as well
00:12:10
Speaker
actually consume whey protein and it has a really unfortunate side effect. It doesn't make you feel very well and I'm not lactose intolerant, dairy allergic or anything like that. I think it's just whey, just the concentration of whey and that just really has an unfortunate side effect.
00:12:33
Speaker
When I started, you know, talking to people about this idea, I was amazed at the number of people that said, yeah, they also had problems eating or drinking whey based products. So finding a different solution is really important here. And and that's really what we've done with crickets. OK, I just would be in a little bit more about crickets.
00:13:02
Speaker
and they're more sustainable. How important is protein supplementation for runners and endurance athletes? Can they not get it from their food? Do they need a supplement? It is really important. It helps you recover. There's that old adage that you can't out train bad nutrition.
00:13:25
Speaker
So, you know, and I think, you know, as you get older and as you do more events, more exercise, more training, you need to make sure that you're actually eating the right stuff to help you recover. And that's where sports supplements can really help.
00:13:48
Speaker
Something like a protein shake is really good because you've got the hydration in there and you'll have a high protein in there as well. And that's good for building back the muscle fibers.
00:14:05
Speaker
that are broken down whilst you've been doing your exercise to build them back stronger, to help you train harder and recover quicker so that you can keep going. That's the thing here. It's about actually keeping you going to keep training, to keep achieving your goals, getting the times that you want with the events that you're doing. OK, cool. So how is
00:14:36
Speaker
using crickets more sustainable. I know you mentioned that was important at the beginning. Yeah, exactly. Along with the nutrition, you've got to have a product that's going to work for you here.
00:14:49
Speaker
the sustainability element is important. And particularly for runners, obviously we're outside when we're running most of the time. So yes, we might be training in the gym, but we'll be outside doing our events. And so you're kind of connected with what's going on in the natural world.
00:15:10
Speaker
So sustainability is really important. And the great thing about crickets is right now they're probably the most sustainable source of protein on the planet. So just comparing it again to whey, that obviously goes through a process but comes from cows.
00:15:32
Speaker
Cows obviously eat grass in the summer and then normally are fed with soy which is often grown in South America and so we can see the destruction that happens to the rainforest there.
00:15:49
Speaker
And that's a real issue. We need to do something about that. So crickets also have very low amount of land that they require. Being insects, they like to kind of swarm together. So that means that you can get a lot of kilograms of protein per meter squared compared to other forms of protein.
00:16:19
Speaker
you
00:16:19
Speaker
They don't require much land. They don't require much water. They only produce one gram of greenhouse gas per kg of protein compared to whey, which is 3,000 grams. So you can see that the order of magnitude is completely different. They just require a whole lot less of everything, which is good for us.
00:16:49
Speaker
And then when you compare that to crops, the big thing here is they don't really require much inputs. They don't require fertilizer and the associated pollution that often occurs. But also they don't require much land and land is something you need to grow crops. So again, they're a very sustainable option.
00:17:18
Speaker
Okay. How long has it taken to produce this product from start to finish then? And what was the, what was a bit of a flavour that you and you went through? Because you mentioned you worked with Chester University. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, you know what, I was counting up the other day the number of formulas that we went through.
The Journey of Product Development
00:17:41
Speaker
And it was 97 to actually get the one that we launched with.
00:17:47
Speaker
When you're launching or developing products with a new ingredient type, you need to do a lot of research. You need to make sure it's safe, make sure you comply with all the legislation, and then you need to be able to deliver your nutritional goals and then work on something that's going to have a great taste profile.
00:18:11
Speaker
So those things take time, which is why we ended up doing so many different formulations.
00:18:19
Speaker
Our crickets are actually farmed in the UK. So they don't have to travel very far. That's really good because lots of crickets are farmed in Southeast Asia. So you obviously incur the carbon for bringing that over to the UK. We actually manufacture our protein powders in the UK as well. So we've kind of kept everything local really.
00:18:47
Speaker
And it's all to food safety standards applicable to the UK. So no one has to be concerned or worried about that. And it's ethically done. We process them.
00:19:05
Speaker
and we keep them healthy. So there's really, hopefully, no real concerns about how we use our crickets. Give me an example of the differences between these 97
00:19:25
Speaker
different types that you have to offer. Yeah, sure. So one of the things about crickets, because they're new, you kind of need to learn how to use them, like any ingredient. What can you mix it with? Because on their own, you want to make them as tasty as possible. So we put them in a shake that you then obviously mix with water.
00:19:51
Speaker
and so that's you've got to learn how to add other ingredients to them to be able to combine to make a tasty shake and so that takes that takes some doing and then on top of that it's hitting the nutritional goals you want.
00:20:07
Speaker
We didn't want to add any sugar so there's no added sugar with our products. We also just wanted clean ingredient deck so it's just dead easy to see what ingredients are in our product. Whereas when you look at lots of competitor products out there you know they'll have a very large ingredient deck and you're never really too sure what's happening over there.
00:20:37
Speaker
and what effect it's having on your body. So it's really because we set our standards of having a clean ingredient deck with minimal numbers of ingredients and nutritional goals that took so long for us to develop. Yeah, okay. I can remember reading a book, it must have been 10 years ago plus now, called The Damage Done and it was
00:21:07
Speaker
I was trying to think what it was called as you were speaking then, because you triggered it about it being a super food. And it was about an Australian man who was in a Bangkok prison. But he spoke about how nutritionally, they weren't fed that well within this prison system. And he spoke about how the local prisoners would eat the insects that were in the cells because
00:21:32
Speaker
They knew that they were nutritionally good and he did it as well. And it actually, a lot of the international prisoners wouldn't fare so well because
00:21:44
Speaker
they wouldn't eat them and they would get a nutrition from them. I can totally imagine that, Joe. I mean, we're actually in the minority in the West not eating insects. Most of the world eats insects as part of their diet.
00:22:03
Speaker
So it's nothing kind of unusual. And if you have ever been on a holiday in Thailand, you probably have come across insects, you know, in the street food there. It's very common. It's almost nothing unusual, really, which is a bit of a shame. But yeah, for most people, insects are a great nutritional food.
00:22:28
Speaker
Yeah. Do you think that's something that you will need to overcome with this, that cultural thing about having an insect?
00:22:41
Speaker
Yeah, I'd go on and answer that one first. I've got another question. Yeah, you know what, Joe? I mean, probably lots of people when we're talking about this and they're thinking about eating insects have probably got, you know, I'm a celebrity, get me out of here on their mind, you know, and kind of all that yuckiness that goes with it.
00:23:00
Speaker
Well, I'm sure that that is an issue. But let me just reassure everyone, the way we've processed our crickets into our shake has meant that actually you don't see any body parts at all.
00:23:17
Speaker
you know, they're processed into a fine powder. So then it's very easy to mix them with other fine powders to create a protein shake that you can drink easily after exercise. So yeah, there's nothing recognizable there in what we're doing. So yeah, you just, I think it's just a kind of education and reassurance thing right now.
00:23:44
Speaker
Yes, yeah, okay. I saw on your Facebook that there was an image that said that for every tugboat there's a one meter squared of habitat is saved. Can you tell me about that? Yeah, well, again, you know, this is kind of part of
Partnership with World Land Trust
00:24:02
Speaker
giving back a little bit. So for every, we teamed up with the World Land Trust. Now they're a charity which work with local charities to save threatened habitat. So the deal we've done for every tub that we sell, we donate to them so that they're able to save a square meter of threatened habitat.
00:24:30
Speaker
And that's much, much better than just going out and planting more trees because these are environments, these are habitats which already have animals in and are already really full of biodiversity.
00:24:48
Speaker
So that's the sort of saving habitat that you want to do. As good as planting trees is, you know, this is better. So teaming up with these guys has been great because we've been able to see what we've actually been able to accomplish in our short time as a business. Okay. What else do you think
00:25:13
Speaker
the industry can do so obviously we're running but you know the enjoyed small to market in terms of sustainability have you got any? Well yeah I mean I think there's loads of things that we could do you know if you're a runner and you've been doing a marathon for example you'll be well aware of the letter
00:25:33
Speaker
um you know that is created by doing a marathon not only from water bottles but also you know gummies and hydration pouches and all the rest of it so there's things that we can do as an industry to reduce that um and so fixing packaging
00:25:53
Speaker
is going to be a key thing. But that's a difficult challenge. So then looking at the ingredients that we are using to make sure that they're developed in a sustainable way and that people can actually identify what is in the product so that they can see what effect it has on them. I think that's really important. So you want to focus on the nutritional angle as well as the sustainability.
00:26:24
Speaker
Do you have further products in the pipeline? Can I expect to be buying termite bar snacks when I go to the pipeline? Yeah, absolutely we do. So yeah, as you can imagine, we've got a few other flavours in the pipeline.
00:26:40
Speaker
But yes we are working on a bar, on a high protein bar. So fingers crossed that will come out in the summer. We're actually going to put that on Kickstarter. Have you heard of Kickstarter Joe?
00:26:57
Speaker
Yes, so we're going to do that in a couple of months time. So we're just finalizing the ingredients in the kind of nutritional profile and making sure we've got the packaging right because we don't want to be one of those brands which is just left on the floor like so many others are. Do you think there'll be more insect based products?
00:27:27
Speaker
with things like this in the future. Like you say, if so much of the rest of the world already eats them, is that something? Yeah, I do actually. I think it for a couple of different reasons. I think because first of all, people are looking for new stuff all the time.
00:27:49
Speaker
Well, think back to the 60s, being being a vegan or vegetarian was an odd thing. You know, when corn started, that was odd. And now, you know, people don't see that as odd. You know, having a plant based diet is common. You know, people won't question that.
00:28:11
Speaker
So things change in the food industry. And I also see the challenges that we've got as a society. There's climate change, which is happening. That for me is not something that's happening in the future. It's happening right now. So the choices we make will impact that.
00:28:37
Speaker
It's just really helping people and guiding people to make those right choices because we have the technology to do that now. And then on top of that, you know, all the forecasts from the UN and all the rest of it are showing that we're going to need 70 percent more food than we have right now by 2050 to feed our growing population.
Sustainability and Climate Change
00:29:04
Speaker
And where's that going to come from? You know, if we carry on doing what we're doing, well, there's not going to be a world to go running in. Yeah. Really, isn't it? I mean, you know, running is so important for lots of people, especially now, you know, during lockdown, you know, it's the one time where you can actually get out. Um, it helps you so much from a mental health point of view.
00:29:34
Speaker
Lots of people find that, I know I do. So it would be a real shame if something happens to that to say the least.
00:29:44
Speaker
Tim, where can our listeners follow you and interact with you and gives you a website and all that kind of stuff?
Where to Find Protein Rebel
00:29:50
Speaker
Yeah, sure. So we're an online brand, so you can absolutely follow us on all the social media platforms, all the good social media platforms. We've got our website, proteinrebel.com, and we're also for sale on Amazon as well.
00:30:09
Speaker
So just look for a protein rebel on Amazon and you'll find us. Great, thank you very much for coming on Tim. It's been good to chat very interesting stuff. Thank you. Great, no problem at all Joe. Great to be here. Thanks for the invite.