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If we can be more conscious about our food consumption, building a more sustainable world is certainly achievable. Corinna Bellizzi chats with Ben Kelly of Better Origin Ingredients about what it takes to create a sustainable nutrition ingredient supply. He shares the environmental benefits of using algae-based Omega-3s, particularly in ending illegal fishing, saving fish populations, and replacing fish oil. They discuss the complexities of global supply chains, as well as how to handle trade wars and tensions happening all around the world. Ben also talks about his philosophy of running a business focusing on social impact, employee well-being, and community service.

About Ben Kelly:

An entrepreneurial-minded leader and connector, Ben has spent the past 15+ years in business development and leadership roles in the dietary supplement and food ingredient industry. He holds his B.A. (Honors) from the University of New Brunswick and his M.P.A from the University of Saskatchewan. Ben’s partner Katie, their two daughters and two dogs make their home in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. Ben began his professional career in business development with POS Bio-Sciences (a global leader in contract R&D services). While at POS, Ben Co-Founded Algarithm, with Dr. Udaya Wanasundara building on his interest in lipids, childhood nutrition and sustainability. In 2021 the business was acquired by Mara Renewables Corp., creating a fully integrated ingredient organization. In 2024 Ben left Algarithm and joined Virun as their Vice President of Business Development, moving one step closer to the consumer. He also took on a new role as CEO of a new B2B ingredient organization – Better Origin Ingredients in April 2025.

Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjamin-k-4b326460/

Guest Website: https://www.betterorigin.ca/

Guest Social:

https://www.linkedin.com/company/better-origin-ingredients

Show Notes:

• 00:03:28 – Ben Kelly And Better Origin
• 00:07:11 – Saving Fishes Through Algae Oil
• 00:12:37 – Understanding The Impact Of Illegal Fishing
• 00:24:17 – How To Significant Improve Supply Chains
• 00:28:24 – Working Opportunities With Better Origin Ingredients
• 00:31:19 – How Ingredients Will Be Sourced In The Future
• 00:40:21 – More Clarity In The Food Ingredient Industry
• 00:47:11 – How Consumers Can Push For Change
• 00:50:38 – Episode Wrap-up And Closing Words

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Creating A Sustainable Nutrition Ingredient Supply With Ben Kelly

Each week, I invite you to care more about social and environmental issues so that together, we can create a better world. Before I get started, I wanted to share our progress in our not-for-profit effort to plant more trees in 2025. I began this program in January 2025 in collaboration with ForestPlanet.org. We’re planting a single tree for every new subscriber to our email newsletter and our show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube.

Theoretically, if a single person did all 4 of these things, we would plant 4 trees for them. That’s fine, because ultimately, the goal is to make the world a little greener each day. So far this 2025, we’ve already planted 7,898 trees. We’re on track to well-surpass the goal of 20,000. If you’re already a reader and a subscriber in these spaces, I want to say thank you. You are what makes this effort worthwhile. Every share, comment, subscription, and follow, all of it helps our show reach more people.

If you haven’t already done so, I’d love to invite you to write us a review on Apple Podcasts. This is something you can do for any show that you love. It will enable their show to get in front of more people, too, because there’s something about that written review, those few words from you that can mean a lot. I also read every single one of them.

In this episode, we’re diving into the future of food ingredients, sustainability, and the powerful potential of algae. I’m thrilled to welcome Ben Kelly to the show. He is a leader, entrepreneur, and industry visionary who has been transforming how we think about nutrition and sustainability for more than fifteen years.

He is the Cofounder of Algarithm, the award-winning company that helped bring algae-based Omega-3s to the mainstream. This is an ingredient I’ve used and formulas we’ve worked with, including those of Orlo Nutrition. He serves as the CEO of Better Origin Ingredients, a bold new venture on a mission to rethink the future of food and dietary ingredients.

We’ll explore how algae is helping replace fish oil and supplements, why systems change is needed in ingredient sourcing overall, and how regenerative thinking can show up in business-to-business models, as well as on the front lines. He comes to me from the prairies of Saskatchewan. I’m so thrilled to have him here. Let’s dive in and learn how we can all do better by sourcing better. With that, Ben, welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me.

Ben Kelly And Better Origin

It’s so good to have you here. I’d like to start by inviting you to tell a bit of your personal and professional journey. You’ve had quite the story from POS Bio-Sciences in the early days to co-founding Algarithm and leading Better Origin. What throughline connects these experiences?

The biggest thing is relearning the impact of everything that we do. Most of my background is in public policy and economics. I ran for a member of parliament, which is equivalent to Congress in the US, when I was 21. I was very passionate about making a change in the world. Eventually, I figured out I felt like I could do that more in business.

I eventually joined a scientific company called POS, where we were doing foundational contract R&D for everyone from leading entrepreneurs to multinational food and supplement companies. It was there that I learned how to meld science with business and impact. I then had kids. Everything I do, I think about them, my two young daughters. They’ve tied everything after through the commercial professional stuff.

They’ll keep you busy, too. Has your perspective on sustainability evolved much over the course of your career, particularly as it relates to Omega-3s?

Yeah. Before I joined POS, I couldn’t have told you where Omega-3s come from. I grew up on the East Coast of Canada. I knew generally to eat fish because fish is good for you, but I would never have known or thought that you could grow the same nutritional lipids in the same fermentation tank as you grow beer or kombucha in and the impact that that could have on supply chains for providing a nutrient that we know the world is significantly deficient in.

Especially in the DHA space, which is mostly grown through that fermentation process, which you’re talking about. It’s those stainless steel VATS that you might brew beer in. We’ve all been to a brewery or a winery.

A lot of people used to watch the TV show How Things Are Made or How It’s Made. In lots of parts of my life, I still don’t think through everything of what goes into the products that I make. I try to be more conscious of the things that we purchase, where they come from, and how they’re made. When you think about how everything’s put together, it is pretty phenomenal what human beings can do.

Being somebody who has spent the bulk of my career in the Omega-3 space, first in fish oil and then in algae, I have a knowledge base that probably mirrors your own in certain ways, understanding that fish get their Omega-3s, EPA and DHA, from the algae they consume. Having spent a fair amount of time manufacturing products that include it, I understand, too, how replaceable Omega-3s from fish are while still having the same nutrient profile.

Saving Fishes Through Algae Oil

I know one of the things that you spearheaded at Algarithm was to define how many fish were saved with the production of this algae oil, if you were to compare them apples to apples. Where do you think that is on a global scale, if we were to look at the algae-based Omega-3 as a whole beyond what you’ve personally worked on? That’s a big question. If you could imagine.

In Algarithm, we used to call it fish math. I have to give all of the credit to our former director of marketing, Katie Phillips. That was her brainchild. You think marketing people are more creative and stuff, but she did everything from digging, understanding, generating all the resources to compare, and then building all the Excel tables to do the math to generate everyone’s fish math number every year. All the credit goes to her. She did it. It was a phenomenal way to visualize and allow our customers, especially the team internally, to understand the impact that they were having in the world.

The genesis of the idea originally came from this company called Kemin Nutrition, which you probably also know in the industry. I visited them a long time ago. They have a calculator. They calculate each day in their finance department how many people their ingredients touch in the world. People don’t understand what they’re doing every day, like the impact of it. When Katie proposed it, I was like, “That’s a phenomenal way to give our customers something to talk about and give us something internally to celebrate, build up, and build forward.”

A metric. Having something that you can measure what is the impact you’re making.

In total, I still think the algal industry itself is very small.

It’s amazing that it’s still nascent.

It’s less than 5% of global Omega-3 consumption. The interesting part for Better Origin as we go forward is that the world, both generally in the public but especially in the industry, understands that the level of fish oil that can be produced in the world has been flat generally for about a decade. I’m not saying there aren’t places where things will become available or where fisheries might recover because we’ve done some conservation, but in general, that level is not going to go up. At the same time, you have an Omega-3 market at the consumer level that’s growing at a compound growth rate of 3% to 5%. You have the equivalent of a new algal oil market being created each year in demand, and that demand is not going to be serviced generally from fish.

The algae industry itself is very small. It is only less than 5% of the global omega-3 consumption.

It’s interesting. If you look at the ingredients that we represent and sell in Better Origin, it’s why it’s so interesting to look at alternative sources of Omega-3s, whether that’s from algae, which has amazing technology and approach to producing EPA and predominantly DHA, or things like Ahiflower. We call it nature’s most abundant Omega-3. It’s rich in flax, but it also has SDA. That’s another Omega-3. In total, it is close to 65% Omega-3 overall. That can be grown regeneratively. It’s sources like this that are going to have the biggest impact going forward if consumers are going to continue consuming plant-based and sustainable Omega-3s.

There is a big difference, though, between something like an alpha-linolenic acid and Omega-3 EP or DHA, which is more directly available and affects the inflammation systemically in the body. I always thought it was ahi, like ahi tuna. It’s Ahiflower, and it’s been used as a novel ingredient, but similar in certain ways to chia seeds. Chia also has Omega-3 in it, but not EPA or DHA. The same applies to the Ahiflower.

Understanding The Impact Of Illegal Fishing

Most of the research in the Omega-3 space is on EPA and DHA, either together or somewhat separate. There’s some research on unopposed EPA and also unopposed DHA, meaning that you don’t have that much of the other fat present. Whenever you’re dealing with fish oil, there’s always some of both because they eat different strains of algae, and different strains of algae produce different Omega-3s. That’s getting way into the weeds.

From that top-line perspective, if we start to understand the impact of our actions when we buy or when we consume, then we can engage with living a little bit more sustainably. I work with VAXA Technologies. We commercialized Orlo Nutrition as a consumer-facing brand. We grow at VAXA the algae that produce EPA, and then we procure the DHA from you, a non-GMO source, which was from Algarithm at the time, that would provide DHA. You gave us the metrics for what we were covering with that.

Based on our math alone, our fish math, if you’d have it, the Omega-3 from our EPA that was in a single bottle was equivalent to 110 sardines or anchovies. It was equivalent to 100 small fish that we’d saved from being squished and extracted for their Omega-3s. Similarly, when we added yours, it was like, “This might be closer to 200 now that we consider this DHA impact.”

We created a fish counter that’s up on the website for Orlo Nutrition, which shows you how many millions of fish have been saved in the short time we’ve been a mostly direct-to-consumer brand, but in part to help people understand they’re making a difference. Having come from that earlier fish world and understanding that fish stocks are relatively flat, and that most of the fish that people consume, at least in the West, are coming from the Peru anchoveta. They are mostly sardines and anchovies. There are some little targets that might have different species like cod, pollock, or salmon oils that are out there, but mostly, it is sardines and anchovies.

The fish stalks are finite. They’ll let you know how many you can get this year. All the fishermen are jockeying to get their cut of that amount. In the past couple of years, the Peru anchoveta has started to say, “We might allow for a smaller mesh size for our nets.” It is a flat admission that they were going to allow overfishing to occur because they’d be capturing more juvenile fish who hadn’t necessarily helped the populations replenish that year.

That, for me, was very concerning, especially as I understand that illegal fishing still takes place off the coast of Peru. In fact, 15,000 dolphins a year are killed off the coast of Peru, in part because local fishermen see the dolphins as competition for the very fish that they’re trying to get, not for meat. When you look more deeply at these things, it gets concerning.

The fact is that 99.9% of society doesn’t know these things. It’s only those that are deeply entrenched in the society because it’s hard to look at and hard to admit. It’s also hard to say, “We’re out-consuming our ability to survive. If we’re out-consuming our ability to survive, then something has to change.” People don’t want to change their lifestyles.

Given your background, you would be more educated than a lot of people around fish oil. People don’t understand. I can give you a perfect example. He was a former New York Times investigative journalist. I  forget the name of the series he put out, but he was covering illegal fishing, challenges with law and order on anything outside that 200-mile economic zone of all countries, and then all the issues with how companies flag vessels in different countries. They tend to pick countries where there’s not going to be any enforcement.

You have this Wild West out on the ocean. In particular, as he dove into all this research, when he started to talk about, and I don’t mean to single anyone out, Chinese-supported illegal fishing, I did not understand the depth of what was going on. You have an outboard fishing fleet that is largely based in China for their domestic consumption and so on. It’s larger than any navy in the world, I understood from what he was reporting. It receives support from the Chinese government using satellite technology.

Sea Shepherd and some of them have followed them. They use the spotlight to bring the calamari up to the top of the ocean, and then they harvest. You see them all park in one place, light up, do their fish, and then you’ll see them an hour or a couple of hours later all turn off at the same time and then move. They’re doing this all outside of each country’s economic zone, so you don’t have any influence. I don’t think anyone, including many governments that don’t have the resources, has any idea how much of this type of activity goes on. I’m sure China’s not the only bad actor.

They’re not. The thing is, it’s not just a conspiracy theory. This is something that has been documented, but that is easily something that all these different industries work to hide. They work to hide the data. I’ve even seen stories that suddenly disappeared. I’m like, “Why can’t I find this thing?” It’s gone. It’s scrubbed from the internet.

You have to have a critical eye and a desire to be almost journalistic in your approach to the news around this particular topic. Seaspiracy did a very good job of highlighting the core issues. People can get to a space where they can understand if they watch the film, which is available on Netflix, called Seaspiracy. It talks about the pirating of our oceans and the illegal fishing that takes place.

You mentioned Captain Paul Watson‘s founded company, the not-for-profit Sea Shepherd. He’s no longer affiliated. He felt like they weren’t getting activistic enough anymore and going up head to head against the illegal wailing industry enough. He founded a new organization called the Captain Paul Watson Foundation. They’re actively doing that work, and quite aggressively.

He spent a better part of 2024 in jail. He was arrested for their efforts. I want to say it was one of the Nordic countries. They wanted to extradite him to Japan, where he probably would’ve been done away with. He went against the extradition order and was released on December 17, 2024. It’s all crazy, in a way.

Seaspiracy does tell a stark story. You learn that the Blue Seal Marine Stewardship Council certification doesn’t mean more than the company that offered that product agreed to fish within these sustainable limits as defined. They don’t have anyone out there patrolling. No one’s out there to prove that overfishing isn’t happening. No one’s out there to prove that illegal fishing isn’t happening because the ocean is vast. It would take incredible resources to try and stop it.

My understanding is that a lot of new fish for food consumption have been established in Africa and other countries where the governments don’t have the resources to take care of their local population. They certainly don’t have the resources to build a Navy to police corporations that are setting up in their jurisdiction, and then flagging their vessels to their jurisdiction. There is no consequence, and even if there were, the consequence is not going to be enforced. The world’s so big. There are finite resources wherever you look.

The hall from a single boat could be in the millions, too. That’s the other piece that keeps this happening. You have enough incentive to keep doing the work, especially in things like the larger-bodied fish like tuna and whale. There’s a market for them. They can be worth a lot of money. That’s what it comes down to. It’s a resource work.

I apologize for asking a dumb question, but why do they hunt whales anymore? I don’t know. I should go read. I’ve never understood this. I know a long time ago, we used to hunt whales for the blubber, lamps, and stuff like that. I don’t understand now. I watched Seaspiracy. I know they cover a lot of the dolphin calls. Is it for the meat? I don’t particularly remember anything.

There is a dark market for meat as a delicacy. The minke whale is a whale that is commonly whaled off the coast of Norway, Iceland, and Sweden. I’ve been at the dinner table when somebody ordered whale when I was working with Nordic Naturals up there. It looks very much like steak, as well as the texture, thickness, and robustness.

You’re talking about a mammal in the ocean. It’s a seafaring mammal. I imagine that dolphins probably taste remarkably similar. It might even be gray-marketed as something else, where they say, “We’ve got this whale, but it’s a dolphin.” The distinction doesn’t matter that much to me. It’s still illegal fishing, but it makes a difference in its marketability. Especially in Asia and the Nordic countries, there are still a lot of people who enjoy eating whale. Why? It’s because people like to eat different things.

How To Significant Improve Supply Chains

We dove a little bit deep into the Seaspiracy world, which can be a little more than troubling for a lot of people, especially those who love whales and dolphins, but the climate impact of what we’re talking about is pretty big. If we are to think more sustainably in ways that we can replace some of these nutrients or ways in which we can improve supply chains so that there’s less waste, I’m curious to see what you are seeing as far as systems changes or industry impact, like how you are working to be part of the solution with the algae or other types of products.

In every company I’ve been a part of, fortunately for me, I’ve been pretty lucky that I’ve always been taught that companies shouldn’t work in the service of profit exclusively. Companies need to be profitable in order to have an impact and meet some of the things that investors and things like that need. Every company I’ve been fortunate to be a part of has had that point of view.

When I got to start Algarithm, and then we will do it more in Better Origin as we get a little bit bigger, we looked at systemic changes starting with even small things in our local community. As we get bigger, we’re able to do more and have a bigger impact. In Algarithm, there are a few different things. We go as a team and pick up garbage along the river shoreline here in Saskatoon.

No one likes to think about winter in Saskatoon because it gets to minus 40 Celsius. We have a large indigenous population that has multi-generational traumatic experiences. It leads to quite a bit of homelessness. You have a lot of people in Saskatoon, far too many, who are on the streets in minus-40 winters. It’s challenging to see as someone who is pretty privileged. Every year, we’d either volunteer at the local food shelter or food bank. We did this thing originally before COVID called socks and sandwiches. We’d use cash to buy socks, and then make sandwiches for a day or two at the shelter.

We carve out time for the team and for individuals to figure out how they can best impact. To answer the broader question, the most important thing is that the company itself, from the very beginning or at any time it chooses, needs to make systemic changes to empower the team and create a culture where people want to do more and want to give back in their own way.

Sometimes, you can have the company direct to things that help, maybe match the company mission, and you’re trying to align everyone to that. I’m a true believer in carving out time to let everyone make a positive impact in their own way. That’s important. When you care about something, it feels more real, and you want to do it again. It’s not something you have to do for work. It starts with the company and then goes from there.

Working Opportunities With Better Origin Ingredients

I love the ethos. I love that you’re focused on this perspective of living well by doing good and being cognizant of your impact on your local community. Even a mention of the people who are native to the land and the generations of trauma that they might have experienced is a powerful thing to even state in this effort. I understand that you’re working to create a space for people to work with Better Origin that is truly better, that enables and empowers the people that work with you, I believe, even through a stake in the company. Is that correct?

Yeah. It’s another part of the ethos I’ve been very fortunate to be a part of, even from my first job at POS, where my father was the CEO. He pioneered taking the company from a not-for-profit that was created by the government into a for-profit and employee-owned entity. In that company, we all put in money. Eventually, we sold the company, and everyone did very well. In Algarithm and Better Origin, everyone will be an owner.

Capitalism in itself, I can understand and I can appreciate. Maybe not to the level of consumerism we are at, but the way to motivate people, I can understand. I feel like we have a pretty big separation or gap between the people who have done very well and the people who haven’t done as well. It’s a way to help distribute wealth in a more equitable and fair way to recognize their labor contribution and their creative contribution to your company. It’s not possible for them to do it all on their own.

That type of ethos likely means that you’re not earning twenty times what your lowest-paid employee is. I would imagine you follow more the ethos of Dr. Bronner’s soaps, for example. Their CEO, the founder’s child, is earning, at most, five times what their lowest-paid employee is paid. That ethos helps to support an employee-based feeling very much that they are part of the overall story of success, rather than, “I’m serving this dude who is off in the glass tower,” which is a different perspective, and which feels far more oligarchical. I think that’s a word. If it isn’t, I’ll make it. People know what I mean.

How Ingredients Will Be Sourced In The Future

I wonder, too, if you’re looking at this whole process. Given the times that we’re in, which from a trade perspective are quite challenging when you’re dealing with a bulk of your business or a lot of your business coming from the United States, I wonder what you see presently happening, and if you think the impact is going to be far reaching in so far as ingredient movement from Canada to the United States and vice versa or how this is going to impact that end of business, understanding that you work in the supply chain for things that people consume, such as supplements, food additives, and things along those lines.

It has been wild. It was April 5th. We were reading about Apple flying five or seven 747s from China before the tariff deadline.

At the skin of your teeth.

Pretty mad scramble. We’re in the business of moving physical goods, so things have to go. It’s been super interesting. The part that worries me the most about all of it is the unintended consequences that even the people who are thinking through everything may not be considering. I was reading on LinkedIn that there’s someone in the industry who imports things from China. A lot of ingredients come from China for the dietary supplement ingredient industry. The number is over 80%. I don’t have a data point for that. That’s my rough guess.

They pointed out that you would think that with nothing moving from China, the freight rates from China would be dropping. What’s happening, because they’re moving goods, is that because there is no freight moving from China, especially to the United States, those boats are sitting there. What is happening is that your freight rate is going up because boats are sitting there waiting until they get full cargo. Since there are limited boats going, you have people bidding for rates. My guess is that people wouldn’t have expected that. Look at all the impact from COVID many years ago and how long it took for those supply chain challenges to get worked out.

It was easily six months for a lot of the ingredients.

You still saw freight rates two years later. In 2022, you had people who had excess inventory. You had freight rates that were still higher. I don’t think everyone fully grasps it yet, and I’m not saying I do either. There are more consequences coming that no one’s thinking about yet. As we encounter them, we’ll have to find a new solution. Not much else to do.

I have some packaging I’m reviewing. This box came from China, because almost all packaging is made in China. I’ve been looking at different aluminum bottles that I might be able to use as we transition from only offering products at Orlo in a pouch to something else. The only supplier that has minimums within what’s reasonable for us for something like a jar is out of China. Every other manufacturer is asking for a minimum of $30,000. This is a minimum of $5,000. It is so much more digestible, especially to test and make sure you have market acceptance.

I can do part of a line in this package and make sure that it’s something that’s going to work for our partners in Iceland, Israel, or here in the United States. We have the option to do things like print directly on the bottle. There’s even a sample of a bottle. It’s an example of what they can do to print right on it. It is eliminating the need for a plastic label. You’re cutting down on other material use by using this method.

There’s another bottle manufacturer of this style in South America, but I’m still going to have to deal with higher tariff rates to bring that in, and then I have to go to 30,000 units, which makes it untenable for a market test. I have to say, “We’re making the shift. It’s happening. Here we are.” In that case, you’re having to buy a lot more, and it may not be ideal for your company. It’ll become harder to exit the startup phase if all of this comes through the way it’s presently planned and being presented.

It’ll be harder for new companies to come up and succeed. Entrepreneurship will falter, and maybe this is part of the intention. Maybe it’s very intentional that the only people who can succeed are those who already have deep pockets and are large employers. It is in the technology space, the Apples, the Googles, and the Microsofts. In the phone space, Mitsubishi has a durable phone, but I doubt that one will survive. It would end up being the iPhones and Samsungs. That’s what I use exclusively.

At the end of the day, these things are going to get much more expensive. It’ll get harder to exercise product development because these are not systems that you can turn on a dime. In the ingredient space, there are certain things that only grow in China. That’s where they’re sourced from. Are we going to suddenly start growing these things in other spaces? Probably not. Where else am I going to get Panax ginseng from, for example? If I’m working on a product that contains ginseng, where’s it going to come from?

Aren’t most of the synthetic vitamins in the world made in China? I’m pretty sure that’s true. A Vitamin C plant outside of Scotland is one example. If you think about it, after the war in Ukraine started and how dependent Europe was on Russia for natural gas, as much as everyone wanted to turn it off and stop right away for a variety of reasons, we’ve built a world that’s very global and interconnected. You get lock-in effects. You get people who are dependent on it. To come back from that maybe is possible, but it’s not easy. It’s not clear what’s going to happen.

I agree. It’s not clear what’s going to happen. We encouraged hyperspecialization. “You want chips. You go here. You want aluminum bottles. You go there. You want to work with a canning facility. You go here.” Even within the United States, there are only a couple of spots where, for instance, beverages are canned. You can’t necessarily go down the street and get it done locally here.

Even though so much actual packaging happens in California, I don’t even know if there is a cannery like that in California. To my knowledge, most of them are in Arizona, Colorado, and a couple of other spots, like Indiana. It goes to show that it’s not as simple as turning a switch. Even then, the materials that they’re using to run the packaging machines are coming dominantly from China. What do you do? It’s frustrating.

You make a good point about hyperspecialization within the US. Each state does everything that it needs within that state. It’s spread out. It’s the same in Canada. We have different provinces and different things that they specialize in. Not all of Canada produces wheat and canola. It’s mostly Western Canada. It’s an interesting problem to come back from or figure out new solutions for.

More Clarity In The Food Ingredient Industry

Thinking about this, if you could change one thing about the food ingredient industry overnight, and maybe it is changing the trade war, what would it be?

The simplest answer would be that a little bit more clarity, policy-wise, would help. I know there are some other organizations that lead this work, but I think one of the things that’s been super interesting coming up in the Omega-3 industry is how much collaboration there is between companies and a willingness to be open, transparent, and look for solutions together. That’s an ethos I can get behind. Even if you don’t see eye to eye on everything all the time, instead of trying to relearn everything, it makes things move forward quicker.

The omega-3 industry involves so much collaboration between companies and a willingness to be open and look for solutions together.

I feel like also answering that question for our audience, if I could change one thing. I’m going to assume these trade issues are taken care of in one way or another. It’s too complex. I can’t turn back what Trump does. It’s not possible. I’m going to stay in a different perspective. I would erase counterfeit nutrition.

This is a problem because you’ll have something like an ingredient that gets used commonly in baby formulas, and suddenly, they’re using this thing other than milk that’s poisoning babies. Why would we ever do that? Melamine in baby formula, are you kidding me? This is something that should never happen, and yet it does.

If I could change one thing overnight about everything in the nutrition category, it would be that there would be no more counterfeit anything. This has also happened in olive oil, which got some coverage. Things that were flavored to be like olive oil actually had zero olive oil in them, and yet were called olive oil on the shelf. It was a lie. The only way to prove it was to test it. What was being shown was that it was a cheap canola oil or soybean oil that was given a little food coloring and flavor to taste like olive oil. That’s terrible. That should never happen, and I wish it never did.

Korea used to be a very large krill oil market. I understood shortly before the KFDA banned all krill oil that the reason they banned it was that they were seeing canola oil or other vegetable oil that was dyed red.

They might have put astaxanthin in there, or they might not have..

I agree. Counterfeit and low-potency products put a bad name on everyone. A company that’s done a very good job, I found, is Foodz has been running testing programs on specific subcategories and publishing all the results. I’ve been following it. It’s interesting to see what’s going on. The thing is, some of it’s very intentional, but some of it is also unintentional and a misunderstanding of formulation challenges with certain ingredients. For example, things like glutathione or creatine will break down in the presence of water. Most formulations need water.

If you don’t know what you’re doing, you’re dependent on a contract manufacturer. That’s one thing that’s changed in the industry, too. Brands typically before, a lot of them were very deep in technical and did a lot of in-house formulation and a lot of understanding of what they’re making. Not exclusively, but generally, brands are more TikTok and Amazon-focused.

Most brands these days do not know what they are doing and are only dependent on contract manufacturers.

They rely on contract manufacturers, right? That’s what you’re saying.

Yeah.

Most of the contract manufacturers have reputable chemists and food chemists on hand, but not everybody’s working with the most reputable of them. They want a cheap product that never sees their own physical location. It goes from the manufacturer to Amazon warehouses. There’s no accountability. I’ve seen that.

You work in the world of fats. I work in the world of fats. There are certain things that you know, like you’re not going to put an Omega-3 in the same capsule with an iron because the iron is going to oxidize the Omega-3. Oxidation is already a problem in an Omega-3 product, so you want to be clear that you’re not going to do that. I saw people pushing formulations across my desk where they wanted to include all these nutrients. I’d be like, “This isn’t going to work with that. This ingredient’s not going to work with that.” They’re going to create problems in the soft gel itself. The soft gel will fall apart, or the oil will go rancid.

The only way to tackle those sorts of things is if you want to micro-encapsulate some of these nutrients inside some sort of shell inside the oil, which is what Ritual’s approach has been. I’m like, “Why bother? Take your oil and your supplement that can’t be in the oil separately. You’ll get more of each of them, and it’ll probably be a better product overall anyway.” People want an easy solution, and sometimes, there isn’t. You can’t combine everything. That’s the way it is.

How Consumers Can Push For Change

I know that this has been perhaps an unconventional conversation. We’ve stepped into a few realms that are impossible or hard to talk about, things like the seaspiracy that’s happening, illegal fishing around the globe, and fraudulent ingredients that have been offered into marketplaces sometimes without the manufacturer who’s creating the product ever knowing that that’s what was happening. I wonder what closing reflections you might have to offer or what message you’d like to leave our audience with.

I would say first, thank you again for having me. There exists in the world opportunities for everyday consumers to look for products that may take a little bit more education, a little bit more learning, but address some of the things that they care about. When you look across lots of the things that we’ve talked about, you have issues with either contamination, sustainability, and fraud, either food or supplement fraud.

This is something I’ve learned through my experience moving from contract R&D to B2B and dealing with brands more and more directly. The more the consumer pushes for change and digs a little deeper, that is going to move the industry further than most things that the industry itself will do. I encourage all the consumers reading to read a little bit more, do a little more research, and find a product that aligns with your perspective and what your interests are.

The more consumers push for change and dig a little deeper, it will move the food ingredient industry further than most things the industry itself will do.

Avoid some of those potentially counterfeit products. Maybe don’t buy products that are only offered on third-party sellers like Amazon. They have their own website, maybe some deeper information that could provide you with some accountability or tracking. All of those things are important, especially for things that you’re going to consume, right?

100%.

I want to thank you for what you’re working to do with Better Origin up in Canada, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, building a company that is employee-owned and operated, and ensuring that you’re working to do things a little better on the supply side. I hope that the trade issues that we’ve confronted aren’t too cumbersome to manage and that we can continue our collaborations in the years to come. The way you’re working to fuel your business is admirable. I hope more people will take on that mantle of building a responsible business that isn’t purely centered on profits, because the fact is, long-term, that won’t save any of us. Thank you.

I agree. Thank you.

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Episode Wrap-up And Closing Words

If there’s one takeaway that I have from this episode, it’s this. When we rethink our inputs, the ingredients that fuel our businesses and our bodies, we can spark ripple effects of regeneration or sustainable nutrition that go far beyond the bottom line. As always, I invite you to dig deeper. If you enjoyed this conversation, please share it with a friend. Leave us a review. Tell us what you loved, or even stick it to us if you didn’t love something.

Together, we can ultimately move in a more positive direction. Your support will continue to help us grow. We’ll even plant more trees when you subscribe to our show and our newsletter. Together, we can do more and be better. Until next time, I hope you’ll stay curious, stay connected, and stay committed to doing good.

Important Links

• Better Origin Ingredients
• Benjamin Kelly on LinkedIn
• Better Origin Ingredients on LinkedIn
• Algarithm
• ForestPlanet
• Care More Be Better: A Podcast For Sustainable Social Impact and Regeneration on Apple Podcasts
• Care More Be Better: A Podcast For Sustainable Social Impact and Regeneration on Spotify
• Care More Be Better – For A Regenerative Future on YouTube
• Seaspiracy
• Captain Paul Watson on LinkedIn