Meati Foods, a producer of plant-based whole-food protein made from mycelium, announced the opening of its largest-yet production facility in Thornton, Colorado. The 100 thousand foot facility, dubbed the “Mega Ranch,” is expected to hit a production rate that could produce tens of millions of pounds of the startup’s fungi-derived meat product by late 2023.
The funding for the new facility comes in the form of a $150 million Series C raised last year and a recent $22 million extension round. The company’s total funding to date is more than $250 million.
Meati claims the Mega Ranch will be able to match and even exceed the scale of the United States’ largest individual animal-based ranches. The company says the Ranch is vertically integrated, which means it will allow for the growing, harvesting, processing, and packaging of Meati products under one roof.
Meati Foods’ CEO and co-founder, Tyler Huggins, said, “Investors and consumers recognize that Meati is a new, differentiated food. They only need to read our simple ingredient list and taste Meati to recognize that this is the cut-through option people have been waiting for.”
Meati’s product line, called Eat Meati, includes Classic Cutlet, Crispy Cutlet, Classic Steak, and Carne Asada Steak. The company sells them online through its website and through retail and food service partners like Sprouts Farmers Market, Sweetgreen, and Birdcall.
Meati’s announcement is yet another in a long line of alternative protein startups announcing scaled-up production capacity for their products in recent months. Earlier this month, fermentation-focused seafood specialist Aqua Cultured unveiled it has started construction on a new production facility in Chicago, and last month Believer Meats broke ground on what it claims will be the biggest production plant for cultivated meat, producing over 10 thousand tons of cultivated meat when running at capacity.
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