'The Hub' with Michael Allen sponsored by Manpower Richmond
Welcome to "The Hub with Michael Allen," the podcast that dives deep into the stories of community leaders and business owners who are making a difference. Join your host, Michael Allen, as he uncovers the untold narratives, challenges, and triumphs of those shaping their communities.
In each episode, Michael sits down with remarkable individuals who have dedicated their lives to improving their neighborhoods, towns, and cities. These community leaders are passionate, driven, and committed to creating positive change. Whether they are activists, educators, philanthropists, or civic officials, they all share a common goal: to build stronger, more vibrant communities.
"The Hub" also showcases the journeys of business owners who have turned their dreams into reality. From small-scale startups to well-established enterprises, these entrepreneurs share their insights, experiences, and lessons learned along the way. Michael delves into the unique challenges they face, the strategies they employ, and the impact their businesses have on the local economy and society at large.
With engaging conversations and thought-provoking discussions, "The Hub with Michael Allen" provides listeners with valuable takeaways, inspiration, and actionable ideas. Each episode offers a glimpse into the minds and hearts of those who are actively shaping the fabric of their communities, providing a roadmap for listeners who want to make a difference in their own lives and surroundings.
Tune in to "The Hub with Michael Allen" and join the conversation as we explore the stories of community leaders and business owners who are leaving an indelible mark on the world around them. Get ready to be inspired, motivated, and empowered to take action. Together, we can create a better tomorrow for everyone.
Sponsored by Manpower Richmond.
'The Hub' with Michael Allen sponsored by Manpower Richmond
Ep. 23 | The Future of Fermentation with Jason Fleming: Liberation Labs and Richmond's Manufacturing Evolution
A revolutionary approach to sustainable manufacturing is taking shape right here in Richmond, Indiana—and Jason Fleming, Head of Human Resources at Liberation Labs, joins host Michael Allen on The Hub to share an exciting update. The Hub is proudly sponsored by Manpower Richmond. Visit www.mprichmond.com to learn more about how Manpower is connecting great people with great jobs.
In this episode, Jason discusses the major progress on Liberation Labs’ $125 million precision fermentation facility, which is already 60% complete and on track to begin operations by early 2026. This cutting-edge facility uses microorganisms as “living plants” to produce high-quality, sustainable ingredients for industries ranging from alternative proteins and food to pharmaceuticals and biopesticides.
As a contract manufacturer, Liberation Labs will create custom ingredients tailored to client needs—driving innovation and sustainability across multiple sectors. Backed by a recent $50.5 million convertible note, their financial foundation is solid, bringing total deployable capital to approximately $125 million.
Jason also highlights strategic partnerships taking shape, including a collaboration with Ivy Tech Community College to create specialized training programs. These initiatives will help recruit and develop local talent for roles in fermentation and biomanufacturing, offering a new career path in a rapidly growing field.
In an exciting development, Liberation Labs is also partnering with the Department of Defense to help shape the future of domestic biomanufacturing infrastructure. The Richmond facility will create 45–50 skilled jobs, including technicians, engineers, quality control, and maintenance staff—with hiring ramping up in late 2025. The company is committed to offering competitive pay and fostering a collaborative culture built on smart, humble teamwork.
Looking ahead, Liberation Labs has acquired additional land in Richmond to support future expansion, placing the community at the heart of their global mission.
To explore upcoming career opportunities and learn more, visit www.liberationlabs.com.
Welcome to the Hub Podcast recorded right here in Richmond, indiana. I'm your host, michael Allen, and on the Hub, our mission is to share stories of people making a difference in our region. In addition to hosting the podcast, I work with a wonderful team of staffing professionals at Manpower. Manpower is helping companies all over East Central Indiana find staffing so they can continue to grow and thrive. Find out how we can help your company at mprichmondcom.
Speaker 1:So today on the our episode of the hub, we have jason fleming, head of human resources for liberation labs. Uh, liberation labs is a new company, uh, building a facility in richmond. And jason fleming, welcome back to the hub. Thank you for having me. We, uh, we were talking about we did this at the end of 23, when things were just getting started and pretty excited about talking about this again. So you know, we're going to just kind of follow up on the progress at the Richmond operations facility and what's been happening since we spoke the end of 23. Kind, of before we go into that, I would like to review with our followers a little bit about you how and when you began your relationship with Liberation Labs, so kind of how that all came about.
Speaker 2:Sure yeah. I was contacted by one of the co-founders of the company, etan Bentheim, shortly after the idea was conceptualized and they asked me initially to help out with some of the basic HR work on a part-time basis in the very early days, I think, before we technically had any employees, and have been a part of it ever since and have really enjoyed the ride so far.
Speaker 1:Great, great. So you know, liberation Labs are going to be a precision fermentation manufacturing facility and I think I know what that is. I think I also know, like, what AI is, but I think I might know what precision fermentation is. But if you could just share with us the nature of the product, how it's going to be used in other products, stuff that we may be familiar with, you know, joe Public would like oh wow, that goes in this burger I'm eating, or something I don't know, or this product that I'm buying.
Speaker 2:Sure, if you could share a little bit about that, yes, I mean, our model is that we're going to be operating as a CMO, a contract manufacturer, so we will produce ingredients to spec for a variety of different customers and then we use precision fermentation, which is essentially using microorganisms as a living plant, a living sort of you know production entity, in order to produce high quality, sustainable ingredients. So the ingredients we make will vary from customer to customer, but likely what you'll see is food grade ingredients, like alternative proteins. We could make compounds for pharma companies, biopesticides. So we'll be, I think, agnostic in terms of the sectors that we supply, but we'll be focused on using fermentation to produce high-quality ingredients for their products. They'll, in turn, sell direct to consumer. They'll, in turn, sell direct to consumer.
Speaker 1:So when you came in partnership with Liberation Labs, you didn't know about any of this stuff right I pretended to. But I mean, it's probably been an interesting educational process to learn about precision fermentation, because you're getting people like me asking you questions all the time about it, I'm sure. And so you've had to you know kind of learn it and become be able to speak to it at least. I mean Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean it's very unique and a very niche way to produce ingredients. But yeah, I've learned a lot just by being in meetings and hearing our technical team and our co-founders speak to the technology and to the business plan, and then you get very curious and then you sort of geek out on it and do a lot of your own research. So, yeah, it's definitely you get a fast track for sure.
Speaker 1:So I think back in June of 2023 was the, they all got out there with the shovels and broke ground and whatever. So we're heading. I mean, this is March, so three months would be about two year mark. I mean, that's kind of a ceremony they get the shovels out there. I mean they're not pulling in bulldozers that day, I doubt, but maybe they did, I don't know. But um, kind of what's been transpiring in the last 20, 21 months since you, you all broke ground, kind of where do things stand today?
Speaker 2:yeah, on On the construction side, we are making slow and steady progress. Uh, we're probably about 60% complete the facility now. I think when I, when we recorded the last time, that day was the first day we poured concrete in 2023. And so we've had to have, uh, some of the equipment is is custom made overseas. Uh, but we're, you know, 60% complete today, expected to be complete construction by late 2025. And then facility startup either late 2025 or early next year. So that's been going well.
Speaker 2:From a business side, there's been, you know, a lot of behind the scenes work, a lot of progress being made that people don't necessarily see.
Speaker 2:We've entered into a really exciting long term relationship with Ivy Tech Community College and we were in the final stages of negotiating that actually when we recorded last, so I couldn't speak about it, but we're going to be developing a custom or we've actually started developing a custom training program so that we can hire local talent who have great experience in manufacturing and maintenance and give them an accelerated course in fermentation and biomanufacturing to help them take on roles in our facility in Richmond. So we're very excited about that. We'll probably have two weeks of classroom work as soon as people get hired so they can go through the crash course and then move to on-the-job training. We've just recently closed a big financing round, a $50.5 million convertible note, which brings our total deployable capital up to about $125 million, which puts us in a great place to be able to fund the remaining construction of the project and to get started up and have done a lot of interesting work with, you know exploratory discussions with future clients, and we've actually entered into an agreement with the Department of Defense as well.
Speaker 1:Discussions with future clients, and we've actually entered into an agreement with the department of defense as well. Yeah, the financing that's got to be, that's got to be tough, because you know you're into a product that's like a niche, niche type of product and there's not a lot of facilities like this. I don't believe in the in the us or not a ton.
Speaker 1:And uh. So I mean you're, you're buying property, you're trying to build a facility and you're not selling anything yet. So I mean to try to get all that financing. I'm sure is a task, and it sounds like you've got it all worked out now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we just I mean just recently have sort of had a big milestone, but yeah, it was. It's challenging to raise that much capital, for sure, and the market, the availability of capital that changed dramatically in the last two years and so we had some headwinds, but we're very happy that we got it done.
Speaker 1:That is so good to hear you talked about. There's two things. You mentioned the Department of Defense contract, so you'll be making some product for them or doing something with them. I don't know how much you can say about top secret stuff we can share.
Speaker 2:So it was a cool initiative. So they've engaged a few organizations where we've entered into an agreement to produce business and technical plans that are focused on potential future domestic biomanufacturing facilities. So at this point it's building, you know, developing plans and sort of outlining potential future projects. So it was shared publicly so I'm allowed to talk about it. Down the road. There's the potential option as well, or potential opportunities for a build grant or a build award or a build grant or a build award, which would actually result in capital being deployed to start building infrastructure in the US for biomanufacturing facilities.
Speaker 1:In some of the notes that we had shared prior to today, you mentioned ITCC partnership. What is that? Ivy Tech?
Speaker 2:Oh, okay.
Speaker 1:Ivy Tech. All right, I had written that down and I didn't quite make the connection for some reason. So yeah, I mean, have you worked with Chad or has there been other people that you've worked with?
Speaker 2:at Ivy Tech, Chad Kim primarily, and then some of their faculty as well.
Speaker 1:That's such a great asset to our community. Great, and that group over there. They're just, they do some great stuff. So we broke ground, june 23. We've got um financing some partnerships. You talked about the construction site. We're thinking the end of this year, beginning of next year, um, so what about some of the startup planning? Where do you stand with that?
Speaker 2:yeah, we're making a lot of plans now, you know, preparing for the staffing for the facility um, selecting key vendors and, you know, once we have a firm timeline on the sort of exact construction completion date, they will work backwards from there to start actually making the hires. But we've started recruiting sparsely some roles already, but heavy recruiting focus will be later on in 2025. So we have a pretty detailed site resource plan that we've built and I think, are fairly confident in that plan so that we can move quickly when we are pretty firm on the timeline.
Speaker 1:So when we had this discussion the first time, we may have discussed some of the jobs, but the types of jobs that you're going to have. Are you able to share a little bit more detail of what those different jobs are going to be sure?
Speaker 2:yeah, so the the site will be, let's say, 45 50 people. We'll have. A large number of those will be directly involved in manufacturing. So, so manufacturing techs are a critical part of that site plan and, in addition, maintenance technicians, quality and lab techs those are going to be the vital roles for just the production element. We need to bring in key leaders, so an ops, ops manager, technical manager, quality, and then there'll be a number of engineers as well that we bring on.
Speaker 1:The thought I think when we've had discussions in the past is that you're going to run 24 hours Correct, and so you will have. I think was it about five manufacturing techs per shift, Is that?
Speaker 2:what we we go back and forth internally on that. It'll be likely looking at a four-on, four-off schedule for the manufacturing techs. You'll be either dedicated days or nights, with a shift premium for folks working at night, be either dedicated days or nights with a shift premium for for folks working at night. And, um, we were yeah, that will be sort of you know, four to five manufacturing techs per shift.
Speaker 1:We'll need a maintenance tech per shift and a shift supervisor as well so that right there could those positions potentially make up like 28 of the 45 you know, you have five one-on-one seven times, you've got to have four different groups, Yep. So that's, that's the majority of those positions. Then you get up to the more specialized positions that from their skill, skill sets, uh, yeah, I don't think you know this yet.
Speaker 1:But the timeline for hiring you said you're going to have to whenever you can kind of have a better feel for when things are going to complete it, then you're going to work backwards.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean the key with the hiring and this is what's really interesting about building a facility from scratch is that you at one point are just switching on the operations and so you need to have people hired, trained and ready to go for the day that you start to produce ingredients, and so you know you can't be too late. You also don't want to be too early where you've hired people prematurely and they're not um and there's no work. So um, I think we we will be gradually recruiting between now, you know, kind of on an ongoing basis. The real mass local recruiting would be second half of this year, probably a bit closer to the end of the year.
Speaker 1:The Ivy Tech training program. Do you know how long that particular program will take? Is it like two weeks?
Speaker 2:Okay, Two weeks of classroom back to school and um, it'll be basically, once you get hired you'd be, you know, we'll have an orientation and then you'll go, you know, two weeks, uh on site at, uh at Ivy, go through the training. There'll be some lab components, some hands-on, some lecture, and then from there you'd move to the site and we'll start to be getting your hands on the equipment to to get comfortable as well the um.
Speaker 1:So what's it going to look like to work for liberation labs? I mean, the culture benefits those type of. Can you speak to that, or is that still kind of developing?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can speak to you know, from a culture standpoint. We are very progressive and our co-founders, from day one, were very intentional about building a very welcoming, very comfortable place to work building a very welcoming, very comfortable place to work. And so, as a result, you know, we're a very flat organization, very collaborative. We have a lot of very smart people, very humble, collaborative people all just working together to try to get to the best end result, which is great. From you know the kind of specific compensation components, we've made the decision to try to pay top of market. It's a tough skill set to find and we realize that we will be training our hires to become specialized. So I think we'll be very, I think, uh, very competitive with with compensation and benefits, for sure, and, um, yeah, I think overall I'm probably biased, but I, I, it's it's best job I've ever had. I really enjoy it, and I think we we want to make sure we continue with that, um, that positive culture as we scale and, uh, I think that's a big focus for us as we scale.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we've been. We've had several conversations about you know pay and and uh, and I know you're still working through those numbers and so there's not those aren't really readily to put out there for the public. But you know, I think from what we've discussed and what I've seen you know and working at Manpower and different companies and compensation I've seen there I mean I do believe that you know some of your goals in that area you're going to hit. You know in terms of competitive pay and benefits and I think you'll be highly sought after. You know destination for people that want to start with your company and want to grow and come to work there. So you know, I think you're going to do great in that area from what I've seen so far. So I think that's something to be encouraged by. So you know, for those following us, listening, watching, I mean it's tough because you don't know when you need all these people yet but they're going to watch this, they're going to listen, they're going to think they want to, they're going to want to apply tomorrow.
Speaker 1:but so what can we tell those people? What's the message that we want to put out to them? For people that are just excited to want to get their foot in right away, I mean because people are going to think, hey, I need to, I really want to get a job there, so I need to, like, be one of the first people to apply. I want to get in early. So how do we tell these people constructively what they should look for and what they should do at this point?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the first thing I'd say is we sincerely appreciate the enthusiasm locally should do at this point. Yeah, I think first thing I'd say is we sincerely appreciate the enthusiasm locally. I mean it's from prospective candidates to, you know, our neighbors near our facility. It's been really, really pleasant to have such a warm reception and for people to show that excitement about joining us. And you know I think we won't be quiet about it.
Speaker 2:When we start to recruit, we will be pretty vocal. Probably the best information would be that we centralize all recruiting through Bamboo HR, which is our applicant tracking system, and so we will be linking all vacant positions to our website once we start recruiting and so people can just monitor the website. And we're also pretty active on LinkedIn when we post positions, so it will be easy to see when we start to recruit and again, it's not too far away from now. The second half of this year is when we'll go. We'll be going to market for a lot of the, the, the kind of mass recruiting, the folks that we'll be hiring and putting into the Ivy Tech program. So we'll be we'll be very, very clear and transparent when we start to recruit. In the meantime, people are welcome to share their profiles through the website. But I think it's it's always good to have preliminary discussions, but the more specific conversations about specific jobs will be the second half of the year.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean. So we're just telling the public, hey, keep that enthusiasm, but there's only so much that you can do with their information right now, because you don't need it yet, right, I mean, you don't need it and so, uh, but I think if people at websites liberation, labscom, so check it out, and uh, and and so eventually it'll show up, and so, hey, if you want to go in there and check every other week or so, great, great, and eventually it will show up. So, jason, you've been here on the scene early, you know in this process, what's, how's it look for you like moving forward? I mean, I mean, you're from canada, you live in canada, and uh, we joked last time and I'll just I'll wear out the same joke thank you for flying in from canada to do the podcast. But, uh, so are you going to continue to be kind of a remote worker and coming in as needed, or what's, what's your job going to look like moving forward?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'll continue to be remote, but certainly as we get closer to startup and then once we're operational, I'll be here very regularly, which is great. I love being here. It's very, very enjoyable nice place to work and great barbecue. Nice, nice place to work and great barbecue. So, no, it's, I think, as we approach the startup timeline, I'll be, you know, likely, you know, every other week and then eventually we'll hire a small HR team to operate the day to day operations of the facility from an HR standpoint. But I think it's important to be present and think, especially when you know there's such a massive project with so many moving parts. I think all of us, the entire team, including our, our two co-founders, will be a regular presence in the community, as we're, as we're getting going the owners and, um, I mean, this facility is not even operational yet.
Speaker 1:However, I've seen so many times where a facility here was built and as soon as they got done and started up, they were already thinking about adding on or the next stages, whatever. Is there a vision out there for liberation that it's definitely going to go beyond Richmond or go beyond the scope of what's being built now? I mean, has there been those kind of discussions?
Speaker 2:Yeah, even from the inception, the plan was always to make a network of these contract manufacturing organizations, and so I think we'll definitely be multi-site. We've purchased enough land for multiple sites in Richmond. The ordering of the sites is not yet finalized, but I think that there's definitely plans to have multiple sites globally, but also multiple sites in the region here. It's just a question of what's the order of those capital projects.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, well, that doesn't surprise me because there's just, you see, that happens. I've seen a lot happen just in our community and the different companies that are here and what they've done. Any other sharing that you want to do? That's something that we didn't hit. I mean, you don't have to, but I just didn't know if there's anything else that maybe we thought we might discuss or that would be good for the public to know.
Speaker 2:I think just you know, we continuously as a team talk about how welcoming the community has been, from the EDC to, you know, ivy Tech Manpower. Obviously, even yesterday at dinner we were saying every time we're in a meeting, our local contacts are just continuously sharing helpful suggestions and resources and it's really great to be building such a big project in an area where it's very apparent that there's excitement and it's a very welcoming environment. So I just say thank you to the broader community for being so open and to receive us with such nice hospitality.
Speaker 1:Right, I think that's a story that needs to get out more. There's a lot of positive things going on in this community and there's a lot of positive things going on in this community and there's a lot of players that are trying to help companies like yours get going, get established and, uh, I think we need to keep trying to do a better job to share that. And on a personal level, I can tell you that I've talked to a lot of people that have had interactions with you and and uh, they've always been super positive. Jason, they speak highly of you and and about Liberation Labs coming here. I mean, you've been here a lot and met with different groups, and so I can tell you that you're well-liked and you've done a great job presenting your company. So really appreciate you coming back and having this discussion with us and just wish you guys the best of luck moving forward, and I'm sure things are going to be great once we get started and people start working there. It's really exciting to see that, just see how it's developed over these two years and then toward the end of this year and next year what it's going to look like that's great so
Speaker 1:thank you for joining us. Well, that's all for this episode. Thanks again for listening and watching, so please share and subscribe. Once you have a chance to listen to this, please pass on the news about Liberation Labs to your friends and family. That's all for this episode of the Hub. Thanks again for listening and we'll see you next time for another conversation with a difference maker from our region. Manpower is proud to support the Hub. Find out how they can support your business at mprichmondcom.