James Rogers
Founder & Board Member, Apeel Sciences. On 1 show, 3 appearances, plus 1 compilation re-air not counted. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
founderscientistexecutive
James Rogers founded Apeel Sciences in 2012 to develop plant-derived edible coatings that extend the shelf life of fresh produce. He served as chief executive officer until stepping down in February 2024 to become a board member.
1shows
3appearances
26statements
12resolved
8supported
1contradicted
67%fully supported
Everything James Rogers said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
James Rogers: Future household wealth will be defined by 3D printer capability
“And I think it's, I mean, I think in the future you're going to have a fancy three D printer in your home and how wealthy you are is going to be what type of three D printer you have. If you're really wealthy, you can print the latest and greatest iPhone. If y…”
Rogers: Apeel's invisible plant-based peel extends produce shelf life without refrigeration
“We've developed a way to use food to preserve other food. And so we use natural plant materials to create an invisible peel that we apply to the outside of fresh produce. And by constructing this peel in the appropriate way from these food materials, we're abl…”
Rogers: A new food supply chain will unlock trillions in value
“I think we're going to see the evolution and development and deployment of an entirely new food supply chain, which unlocks trillions of dollars in value. Improves the quality of the produce that we're growing, reduces or eliminates this whole idea of seasonal…”
Rogers: Apeel extends fresh produce shelf life by three to five times
“And by doing that, we can extend the useful shelf life of fresh produce by a factor of three to five times.”
Rogers: Material science will yield produce lasting twice as long without pesticides
“So we view the future as really an opportunity to use this knowledge of material science and knowledge of how to reconstruct nature's molecules into clever structures that will ultimately allow us to deliver produce that lasts twice as long for the consumer an…”
James Rogers: Produce spoilage rates in US reach 33% to 50%
“If you look at spoilage rates in the United States and, you know, the numbers are kind of all over the place, but they're between a third and a half.”
James Rogers: Harvest losses reach up to 90% in developing countries
“Now, so you start talking about trying to be able to reduce losses, which can be, you know, 80, 90% of a harvest in the developing world.”
Rogers: Global food demand will increase 50% in 30 years
“We're going to need 50% more food in the next 30 years to feed the world's growing population.”
Rogers: US food spoilage rates sit at around 40 percent
“If you look at, you know, food spoilage rates in the United States, they're around 40%, so we're throwing away almost half of what we're growing”
Rogers: Early-harvested tomatoes lose 80% of their potential nutrient density
“And the reason for that is that the tomatoes harvested at a stage three, at a color index of three, which means it's green. And you really want to consume it at a color index of five or six when it, when it's that deep red. And the reason for that is that the …”
James Rogers: Apeel's protective produce coating is completely imperceptible to taste
“Yeah, you actually, you can't taste it. It actually tastes much closer to the fruit when it was actually picked originally.”
James Rogers: Air freighting avocados to China costs more than the fruit
“In the case of avocados, you know, the price of shipping a box of avocados to China is more expensive than the box of avocados itself, because of perishability, you have to air freight them in.”
James Rogers: Extra week of mango shelf life increases farmer income
“What we found in talking to smallholder farmers is that if you can extend the shelf life of a mango by an extra week, they can earn an extra three to five shillings per mango.”
James Rogers: 80% of fresh water usage goes to agricultural irrigation
“You know, the numbers are around 80% of fresh water going into irrigation, you know, all of the pesticide usage that ends up, you know, running into the water streams that ends, that's, you know, putting pesticides on fruit that we're not even eating, all the …”
James Rogers: Doubling produce shelf life effectively doubles transportation speed
“You know, one of the ways I look at our product as well as infrastructure in a packet, you've got really poor roads and now you're able to get that produce a certain distance before it goes bad. Well, if you double the shelf life of that produce, it's effectiv…”
James Rogers: Synthetic pesticides inevitably harm beneficial organisms alongside targeted pests
“The problem is, is that those processes that we generally interfere with are really valuable processes. That's why they've stuck around for so long, and so they're used by many, many, many different types of life forms, and so it's incredibly challenging to po…”
James Rogers: Apeel Sciences powers hardware testing using Raspberry Pis and Arduinos
“For us, our entire office runs on Raspberry Pis and Arduino units that control controllers to measure different stuff.”
James Rogers: Plant breeders prioritize crop transportability over taste and nutrition
“When you look at what plant breeders do basically is when they're breeding a new crop, they're looking down the list and the number one thing on their list is transportability and taste and attrition is like level 12 or 13 on the list.”
James Rogers: Apeel extended finger lime shelf life from 5 to 25 days
“And the challenge with them is, you know, they brought them in the US, they grow a bunch of them, but the shelf life of these things is like five days, maybe. A supply chain that, that only lasts five days doesn't get you into very many stores. It's just not r…”
James Rogers: Breakthrough technology will come from nature, not isolated invention
“And the way that we are going to be able to build new things, we believe, is not by Trying to come up with entirely new solutions on our own, but by rather figuring out how to ask nature the questions, which it has already spent, it's already got a 3.8 billion…”
Rogers: Earth will add 2 billion people without gaining fresh land or water
“We're gonna add a couple billion more people to this planet in the next 30 years, and along with that, we're not gonna get, ah, another rocket load of more arable land and more fresh water.”
James Rogers: Apeel extracts specific molecular isomers for lightweight produce coatings
“We actually know down to the isomer what these materials are when we create these blends. We then extract those really particular subsets of materials. I turn them into powders. So they're lightweight, they're low cost to distribute. And then we ship them to w…”
James Rogers: Apeel uses natural plant building blocks instead of synthetic materials
“The trick about what we're doing is that it's not some sort of synthetic material that nature's never seen before. We're just using the exact same building blocks that nature uses every single day, and we're simply repurposing them for a different application.”
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens James's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 a16zLEDGER | Founder & Board Member, Apeel Sciences | 3 +1 | 26 | 67% 8/12 | full record on the a16z Podcast → |