Crossing Borders With Nathan Lustig

Matías Muchnick, NotCo: Building The Future of Food From Chile, Ep 119 Matías Muchnick left the investment banking world in pursuit of a solution that would bring sustainability to the broken food industry. He could not have predicted that a couple of years later he would be training an algorithm to understand humans’ taste preferences to create a plant-based mayonnaise that would appeal to the mass market.    In 2015, Matías cofounded NotCo, a food tech company that is using AI to take animals out of the equation in the production of milk, cheese, eggs, and meat. Just eight months after launching their first product in 2017, NotCo achieved 8% market share of the total mayo category in Chile in the first stores they launched in, a country that has ranked third in mayo consumption per capita in the world.   I sat down with Matías to talk about his experience in the investment banking world, starting a vegan food startup in 2012 and, ultimately, his decision to leave the company. We also discuss his transforma