About Mike Lee
Mike Lee is the founder of The Future Market, a futurist food lab that explores what our food system could look like in the next 10-25 years through pop-up experiences and conceptual product prototypes.
Mike is also co-founder of Alpha Food Labs, an Innovation Lab for next-gen food startups and corporations building products that are better for by People, Planet, and Profit.
Mike’s experience in food design & innovation has covered a wide range over the past 10 years. Prior to Studio Industries & The Future Market, Mike led product development initiatives on the Innovation & New Ventures team at Chobani.
Mike also founded the Studiofeast underground supper club, a sister organization to Studio Industries. Studiofeast creates unique dining experiences that use food as a medium to design experiences that range from the artful, to the educational, to the hedonistic.
Mike is a frequent and influential speaker on food innovation and has been featured in numerous publications and conferences such as Esca Bona, PSFK, SXSW, Seeds & Chips, EXPO 2015 Milano, Fancy Food Show, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, FastCo Exist, CNBC, Edible Brooklyn, Food Navigator, and more. He has spoken at and worked with companies such as Thermomix, Cargill Protein Group, Barilla, Baldor, PepsiCo, Virginia Dare, Coca-Cola, the Chobani Food Incubator, the James Beard Foundation, Google, Applegate, Chipotle, Batali+Bastianich Hospitality Group, Food+Tech Connect, AccelFoods, the National Turkey Federation, the USA Rice Federation, Puratos, and the Food+Tech Summit & Expo Mexico City and Buenos Aires.
Learn more about:
Future Market – Website
Studio Industries – Website
Mike Lee – LinkedIn
Visit the Future Market at the Summer Fancy Food Show at Javit’s Center in NYC, June 30-July 2, 2018.
Our Conversation:
I first met Mike at the International Association of Culinary Professional’s conference in February 2018 after he spoke on a keynote panel about the future of food. I was absolutely fascinated. I knew he definitely needed to come on the show. Luckily, he was game! 🙂
Our conversation is winding and covers many topics, not just his background, but also talking about how he sees the future of food and innovation in the food industry and food systems, as they relate to health, technology and sustainability.
We discuss:
-
- What is the Future Market and why is it worth paying attention to?
- How Mike became inspired by the Auto Industry
- What is a supper club and how is it a unique playground for innovation?
- The power of innovation and why it’s needed
- Why the packaged foods sector needs improvement
- Dangers associated with lack of innovation
- Understanding “the consumer’s journey” – particularly as it relates to food
- Bringing the tech hackathon concept to food
- How hackathons can help with food safety, rules, and regulations
- The future of holistic health technology (The Fitbit of the future)
- What is “AnalyzeMe?” and how would it help us?
- Lab grown meat? Are we there yet and what are the ramifications?
- and so much more!
Love the show?
If you love our show, please support us by:
- Sharing it with your friends
- Leaving a comment on the show notes
- Writing a review on iTunes or Facebook
- Subscribing
- Donating on Patreon
- Contacting us to learn about sponsorship opportunities
- Contacting us for a feature/interview