TurtleTree shows resilience when facing initial difficulties in sourcing lab consumables
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Earlier this year, TurtleTree opened its new lab in Woodland, California. TurtleTree is a Singapore-and-US-based biotech company that pioneers cell-based technology to create sustainable food and dairy. It seeks to uplift the world by providing a new generation of nutrition that’s better for the planet, better for the animals, and better for people everywhere.
Unlike many startups, TurtleTree is not restricted by limited funding, as the company recently closed on a successful Series A fundraising for $30 million. In addition, the lab is located in the AgStart facility that provides a lot of equipment needed for cellular agriculture. Instead, one of the biggest hurdles was sourcing lab consumables. To perform their work on cell culture techniques and downstream analysis, TurtleTree needed to order special growth factors and other supplements, as well as many different plastic consumables, like cell culture flasks, sample tubes, and pipettes. The latter are things that most labs use routinely. While the specialized chemicals arrived quickly, TurtleTree is still waiting for some consumables with expected delivery four months after ordering and others without any shipping information. Knowing this could be an issue, scientists Dr. Emily Skoog and Isaac Shaker started to order the consumables before anything else. In one of their first calls with a company to order pipette tips, the company refused their order of 20 ul and 200 ul tips as new customers, since the vendor was experiencing backlogs of five to six months. The vendor prioritized only existing customers. TurtleTree’s team was advised to buy another pipette that could use 300 ul tips, as they were more readily accessible, which they did.
They also ordered consumables from multiple suppliers and ordered large quantities to avoid any pause in lab work. But the supply shortfall has only worsened. If the multiple orders arrive on time, then comes the additional problem of where to store them. Something similar happened to another company at AgStart. They received many more tubes than expected due to an accidental shipment. TurtleTree was lucky to be able to buy directly from the neighboring company instead of going through the vendor. This opportunity was key to actually starting lab work since the original vendor has not been able to ship any tubes yet. Another option considered was ordering from Amazon. Amazon typically has the most impacted supplies in stock, but they charge twice as much as regular suppliers.
The effects of the supply chain shortages are particularly hard on new startups that need to order everything at once. There are no alternatives available in the lab for experiments, which have delayed TurtleTree’s and other companies’ lab work. TurtleTree is a resilient startup since they already have operations ongoing in Singapore. Still, it is crucial for smaller startups to get results from lab work to present to investors for continued funding. Early startups may also not have the funds to order many of the same items from different companies. For TurtleTree, the effects are limited to inefficient use of human resources, sourcing material, and paying many vendors. These supply chain delays prevent many innovative solutions for increasing sustainability and health from reaching the public as soon as they otherwise would.