Mrs. Figaro. – What do you remember from the Business with Attitude award?
Aude Guo. – All the energy shared with the other four finalists, but also with the jury and the public. I felt a lot of very diverse people rallying around the same issue: the visibility of women entrepreneurs.
Bruno Bonnell: I would even say a deep sense of collective joy and cooperation. From the stage, I saw the finalists coming in and out of the wings, supporting and encouraging each other before their pitch, in a real tension but mixed with complicity.
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In video, Business with Attitude :p go behind the scenes of the prize!
Did you know each other before the award?
A. G. – It so happens that Innovafeed, as an innovative company committed to decarbonization, is also a winner of two programs led by France 2030 and benefits from its financial support, in the form of a grant or repayable advance.
B. B. – Innovafeed is one of those companies identified by France 2030 experts, who select about a third of the companies applying for funding. In total, the State has supported Innovafeed to the tune of 12 million euros since its inception, via various operators – Bpifrance, Environment and Energy Management Agency (Ademe), etc. But nobody knew it during the prize, and I didn't need to tell the fourteen other jurors for Aude to win!
And this despite the great technical complexity of this project... How did you, Aude, come to defend a subject as sharp as fly farming?
A. G. – Globally, food production is responsible for a third of greenhouse gas emissions. To limit the rise in temperatures to 2°C, we need to reduce these emissions by 70% within twenty years at the latest... Hence the idea of feeding farm animals with insect-based proteins, which "cost" nothing to the Earth and emit 50 to 80% less carbon than crops usually dedicated to animal feed.
Having one or more partners, then a team, gives credibility to the project
Bruno Bonnell
How did you convince the market? Not everyone dreams of ingesting pork or chicken fed insects...
A. G. – With my associates, being our first critics helped us a lot at the beginning. Is there a real market? Is our solution the most suitable? Is it technologically feasible? We questioned everything, anticipated each other and learned to welcome critics with enthusiasm. This allowed a virtuous exchange with our interlocutors, whether they were investors, local authorities or representatives of the State.
B. B. – It reminds me of my beginnings as an entrepreneur as the founder of Infogrames, a video game publisher, in the 1980s! At the time, these two words did not exist. Explaining to bankers that I aspired to become the world leader in a nascent market was not easy! But Aude is right: self-criticism and pedagogy play a full role. There is also a mass effect. Having one or more partners, then a team, gives credibility to the project.
A.G. – Yes, I saw him in front of the mayor of Cambrai. We wanted to build our pilot plant in its agglomeration, in Gouzeaucourt, in the North. After our pitch, he told us: "I don't understand everything, and if one of you had come alone I wouldn't have supported him. But there are four of you, seem serious to me and have, honestly, everything to lose. We have nothing. Why don't we follow you?"
To undertake, to innovate, is necessarily to confront the risk. How do you apprehend it?
B. B. – I would say that I have a calculated risk ratio. The audacity of the entrepreneur goes with great rigor of execution. Like the tightrope walker, we do not throw ourselves to fall. On the other hand, you have to know how to accept it when you make a mistake. In entrepreneurial parlance, "failure" is called experience. What matters is what you do with it next.
A. G. – The risk also depends on the magnitude of the issue. We created Innovafeed because we collectively need to decarbonize 70% of our food production within twenty years. After demonstrating the success of our product, we need to move up a gear. This is our risk today: size and complexity grow together. But moving slowly, with limited ambition, would make us miss the mark.
Read also"We had to invent everything": with Innovafeed, Aude Guo wins the Business with Attitude 2023 prize
This requires accepting some uncertainty, especially in the current context...
A. G. – Of course. You deal with it by surrounding yourself with the right people. Its partners first, its team then, and finally, outside the company, its partners and its ecosystem, two essential words for Innovafeed. It takes time. When we started, we had to buy an immediately replicable production line in China, the country where I grew up. A turnkey factory for which we have raised funds. I had seen her, alone, before taking my associates there. And then, when you arrive, nothing. The factory was empty. Nothing was ready. In six months, we had to create one from scratch and without a model. Too bad, we did it! Not keeping your word was out of the question.
B. B. – The world is going through a phase of metamorphoses, that's how it is. In this process, which will take years, actors like Innovafeed play the role of facilitators: they help society to take a step forward.
I am convinced: the impetus will come from women
Aude Guo
This is also your role at the head of France 2030...
B. B. – Yes, the General Secretariat for Investment, under the authority of the Prime Minister and in conjunction with the ministries concerned, is piloting €54 billion of investments in health, energy, the automotive and aeronautical industries, the decarbonisation of the agri-food industry, training in skills and professions of the future, but also the exploration of new frontiers such as space, the deep seabed or quantum physics... We are working towards 2050, or even 2100, to transform our country.
A. G. – As for Innovafeed's products, they already emit 50 to 80% less carbon than those usually used and guarantee better growth for animals. This is a significant step. The next level is to replicate this tech everywhere in order to have a systemic impact.
B. B. – This question of scale is crucial. Some entrepreneurs assure us that they will one day make better rockets than SpaceX, or quantum computers more powerful than IBM's. We are here to give them the means to achieve their ambitions. It's a gamble, certainly, but it all starts there: ambition.
In the face of the climate crisis, some are betting on innovation, others on changing behaviour. Where is the balance point?
B. B. – It's a bit of a chicken and egg. We innovate to respond to new habits, but new products also create behaviors... Take the mobile phone: it has transformed our daily lives, our relationship to information and knowledge. And entailed, at the same time, a need to innovate, for example to compensate for the decrease in time dedicated to books. The only certainty in my eyes is that we are genetically programmed to grow and reproduce, like any living species. Technology must enable us to do this in a sustainable and livable way.
A. G. – Let's say we all stop eating meat. It would be crazy effective to decarbonize our food... But this is impossible without a totalitarian ban. Another solution is to save energy in food processing plants. Will this be enough? No. That's why we developed our products and continue our research. We invest a lot to make the insect delicious, desirable also for human food. That would be even more effective than feeding them to farm animals. To achieve this, technology is still needed.
In the long term, what major changes in society do you hope to see happen?
A. G. – I would call it momentum. And I am convinced: this one will come from women. They must access leadership roles in numbers, en masse, in entrepreneurship, as in investment or industry, everywhere. Because a rupture can be brutal, we must make a strong but serene transition, without denying the society we inherited. And I believe that women are the most likely to lead it.
