Videos

Etlas’ Nacho Conti on Corteva and bp’s joint venture, market forces increasing biofuel demand + solving bottlenecks across the value chain

Picture a kitchen arena where 1,500 cooks from more than 40 countries have all won their way in — no open registrations, no fast track, just Golden Tickets earned at hundreds of qualifiers across the year. They cook in rounds, plate blind, and wait on the score. That's the World Food Championships, and it lands at the Indiana State Fairgrounds in Indianapolis October 15–18 for year two of a three-year run.

It's also the event Mike McCloud founded in 2012, and the term he coined for it — Food Sport — has spent fourteen years becoming its own category. This week on Agbioscience, Mike joins us to talk about what happens when a live culinary tournament turns into something brands can test against, and what that means for agriculture on the other end of the plate.

Highlights include:

What "Food Sport" actually is — and how a live, multi-round tournament differs from a cooking show or a traditional culinary competition

How WFC has evolved since 2012, and what has surprised Mike most across fourteen years

Why you can't just sign up: inside the qualifying process, the 800+ sanctioned events, and the Golden Tickets that set the level of the field

WFC as a product innovation lab — putting a brand's ingredient into the hands of hundreds of accomplished competitors, including required-ingredient final rounds like the Chef Category

What a brand actually has to bring to an ingredient integration — and what "we tried it at WFC" gives a product team that a focus group or a test kitchen can't

Stories of competitors using an ingredient in ways that changed how a brand thought about its own product

Building a faster, more effective feedback loop between producers, manufacturers and innovators and the people who cook for a living

What happens after the four days — the chef-brand relationships that outlast the event

Indianapolis as home for three years, with 2026 as year two: why this market works and what the first two years have proven

How a live culinary event intersects with Indiana's $70B+ agbioscience sector — production agriculture, food processing, animal health, plant science, agtech, food-is-health and bioinnovation — in ways people wouldn't expect

Whether WFC can be a catalyst for moving Indiana corn, soy, pork, poultry, dairy and tomatoes downstream into value-added food and nutrition — and what that would take

Mike's vision for WFC's next decade

Faegre Drinker’s Rachael Spiegel on food, agriculture, the law + why recalls continue to climb

Halderman Farm Management’s Howard Halderman on how AI is transforming farm management

SEPRO Scientific’s Dr. Tyler Koschnick on acquisitions, AI adoption + creating scientific solutions for environmental stewardship

ClearLeaf CSO and Co-Founder Agustin Buchert shares the company's journey from medical products to agricultural innovation focusing on plant health solutions. He also discusses expansion into US markets and the exciting opportunity to join Indiana's thriving agbioscience ecosystem

Ag Alumni Seed’s Craig Anderson on AI, phenotyping + advancing seed innovation through research and technology

National Pork Board’s Alayne Johnson on consumer demand, trends + producer priorities heading into her second director term

Etlas’ Nacho Conti on Corteva and bp’s joint venture, market forces increasing biofuel demand + solving bottlenecks across the value chain

Rachael Spiegel, Partner at Faegre Drinker, sits at the intersection of food, agriculture and law — a place where regulatory complexity, supply chain risk and the realities of feeding people all collide. She joins Agbioscience to unpack how companies are navigating an era of rising recalls, what drives the decisions made in the first hours of a crisis and how leaders can build resilience across the value chain.

Highlights include:

The path into food and ag law — how Rachael's background shaped her read on the food system and the challenges it faces

The view from Faegre Drinker — the hurdles food and ag companies are hitting right now, and how those issues have evolved

Prevention, crisis and regulation — how her time actually splits between helping companies head off problems, responding when they hit, and steering through a complex regulatory system, plus what that work reveals about where the food system is strongest and most vulnerable

How risk moves through the value chain — what she sees from working across the chain that others may miss

The recall trend — whether the upward swing reflects growing risk, better detection, stronger oversight, or all of the above

What's actually driving recalls — supply chain complexity, improved testing, traceability, regulatory pressure, litigation risk, consumer expectations, or something else entirely

Inside the decision-making — what companies and the public often misunderstand about how recall calls get made in the moment

The real cost of a recall — beyond the immediate financial hit, where companies feel it most, and how short-term damage differs from long-term fallout • Partners across the value chain — how recalls are changing the way companies engage with suppliers, customers and everyone in between

Looking ahead — how food and ag leaders should be working now to reduce risk and build resilience

Halderman Farm Management’s Howard Halderman on how AI is transforming farm management

SEPRO Scientific’s Dr. Tyler Koschnick on acquisitions, AI adoption + creating scientific solutions for environmental stewardship

Ag Alumni Seed’s Craig Anderson on AI, phenotyping + advancing seed innovation through research and technology

Ecoatex CEO Raha Saremi shares how her company transforms agriculture byproducts into sustainable, bio-based materials for packaging, fibers and more. She discusses the innovative process, her journey from scientist to entrepreneur and her experience in the Velocity bioinnovation cohort.