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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Meati

Meati Opens Up ‘Mega Ranch’ Production Facility, Plans to Produce “Tens of Millions of Pounds” of Fungi-Based Meat

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.

Meati Adds Steak Filets to Its Roster of Mycelium Alt-Meats

Meati co-founder Tyler Huggins radiates the right blend of entrepreneurial enthusiasm and practical knowledge to catapult common mushroom threads into a popular staple for healthy consumers. Huggins walks the walk as a visionary in the future of food space with a diverse background that includes a stint as a field biologist for the U.S. Forest Service, a research engineer, a consultant in the wastewater industry, and a co-founder of a healthy snack company.

“I really dedicate my life to harnessing nature’s power and beauty and then guiding it to help produce sustainable food,” Huggins told The Spoon in a recent interview.

With initial success from the launch of Meati’s mycelium-based alt-chicken and alt-beef cutlets, the company has announced a new product, Meati Steak Filet, which will be available on May 23 directly to consumers through the company’s website. Four steak filets, which should be prepared much as one would cook a steak, will sell for $35.

Like other Meati offerings, the steak fillets are a whole food rich in nutrition. A single serving has only 0.5g of fat and zero cholesterol. It is 120 calories along with 14g of protein, 9g of dietary fiber, and a host of micronutrients such as Riboflavin, Niacin, Folate, Vitamin B12, Zinc, and Copper.

The fermentation process from mushroom roots to the finished product has evolved to become a smooth, sustainable effort, but years of hard work are behind Meati’s success.

“There was a lot of trial and error. We spent over two years and millions of dollars of government grant money to figure out the cultivation and the fermentation part of this process,” Huggins explained.  
And then it was, how do you take all these mushrooms and actually make meat out of it? That was a whole other couple of years because what we do is we make sure we ensure wholesome nutrition. The mushroom roots are actually alive during the entire process. We gently form and orientate the root structure in different ways to mimic different muscles and give you different textures.”

Huggins said that Meati is in the midst of a significant physical expansion, but in doing so, the company looked at other industries for ways to scale without reinventing the wheel. “We looked into other industries and found several analogs. Our existing processes are already scaling, and we said, okay, we’ll take one from here and another from food processing. And we’ve created this unique sort of hybrid of industrial processes where we don’t need some sort of technological breakthrough to be successful.”

The future for Meati includes testing retail distribution in the second half of 2022 and a continued effort to create a brand sanction between itself and the countless other alt-meat products. Beneath it all, Huggins’ passion for delivering a clean, healthy, nutritious product is his and Meati’s north star.

“I look at nature as sort of a toolbox, you know,” Huggins said. “Three billion years of evolution have designed all sorts of different tools. And I believe that most of our problems can be solved by looking into nature because nature’s problem is already solved.”

The Year of the Plant-Based Wholecut Barrels On as Meati Begins Sales of Fungi-Based Meats & Partners with David Chang

When I wrote about what to expect for plant-based meat in 2022, my first two predictions were the rise of plant-based whole cuts and the continued emergence of fungi as a platform for alternative meats.

Colorado startup Meati checks both those boxes with the sales launch of the company’s new line of mycelium-based whole cuts. The company began selling its chicken cutlet and crispy cutlet direct to consumers today via their website and has plans to start selling a steak filet later in the spring. The launch of the company’s fungi-based meats to the general public follows a pre-order launch last month when the company sold over one thousand cutlets in less than 24 hours.

Meati raised $50 million in July of last year to scale its production capacity for its plant-based meat. At 80 thousand square feet, the new plant is expected to eventually produce a daily fungi-based meat output equivalent to 4,500 cows.

The company also announced a partnership with David Chang, the omnipresent chef who recently did a deep dive into the future of food via his Hulu series, The Next Thing You Eat. According to the announcement, Chang will create educational content and partner for product collaborations as a ‘Meati ambassador.’ Chang’s first deliverable as an ambassador will be cooking tutorials and recipes.

David Chang Talks about Meati's Fungi-Based Whole Cuts

Meati’s official launch of its whole-cut mycelium meat is the latest sign of the broader availability of plant-based whole cuts. Last August, Better Meat Company debuted their mycelium whole cut steak prototype (Meati and Better Meat Co are in an ongoing legal dispute over intellectual property). Last month, Juicy Marbles started selling their plant-based steak to consumers via their website. Meanwhile, Libre Foods is planning on rolling out its plant-based bacon whole cut in Europe later this year.

Want a Whole Cut Fungi-Based Steak? Head to Sacramento This Weekend

Curious what a steak made from fungi tastes like?

You’re in luck if you are in Sacramento, California this weekend because that’s where the Better Meat Co will debut their mycelium-based steak. Made using Better Meat Co’s proprietary Rhiza mycoprotein, the alt-steak will be available for one day only at Bennett’s American Cooking steak house this Saturday.

The debut of the company’s new cut comes just a couple of months after the company opened its Rhiza manufacturing plant in West Sacramento. Better Meat CEO Paul Shapiro told me in a video call this week that they were able to create a steak-like experience so quickly in part because fungi are much closer in texture and overall makeup to meat than plants.

“It takes a lot to get plants to taste like animals, but because we’re using fungi which are much closer to animals, you have a shorter distance to bridge,” said Shapiro. “We can create a more meat-like experience with our fungi than we can with plants.”

In addition to Rhiza, the steak also had added avocado oil, fava beans, beet juice for coloring, and some natural flavors. The results, according to Shapiro, are pretty close to the real thing.

“[American Cooking Steak House owner] Brian Bennett says it’s the most convincing alternative meat he’s ever had,” said Shapiro.

And while that may be true, the steak still isn’t 100 percent there, in part because it’s missing the structural and flavor complexity of the fatty marbling that comes in in a traditional cut of meat. Shapiro admits this is something their alt-steak 1.0 edition doesn’t have but says they are working on it.

“[Marbling] is something that we would like to pursue but we have not yet gotten that down,” said Shapiro. “However, when you eat it, it really does have a steak-like experience.”

Better Meat is not the only company working on alt-steaks. Whole cuts are quickly becoming an obsession in the alternative meat space, as startups like Novameat, Green Rebel Foods, Atlast, and even Impossible Foods are working on plant-based steak, while ingredient companies like Motif and Melt&Marble are developing building blocks like plant-based fat to help those creating consumer products get closer to the real thing.

According to Shapiro, he believes this is the first time an alternative steak has been served at a high-end steakhouse. Maybe, but it’s certainly not the first plant-based steak on the menu at a restaurant, as companies like Meati (also made with mycelium) have been showing up at places like SALT’s Bistro since last year.

Either way, it certainly won’t be the last steak made with Rhiza and, according to Shapiro, the next one could be from one of their partners.

“This is our 1.0. What we want to do is showcase what our ingredients can do, and work with companies who can utilize these ingredients to take them to even higher heights.”

Meati Raises $50M Series B for Mycelium-Based Meat Alternatives

Colorado-based Meati produces whole cuts of meat alternative analogs from mycelium, and today the start-up announced that it has raised $50 million in its series B round (news from Forbes). The round was led by Acre Venture Partners and BOND, with participation from Prelude Ventures, Congruent Ventures, and Tao Capital. This brings the company’s total funding to $109.1 million.

Meati uses fermentation to produce its alternative protein products, a technique that the Good Food Institute calls the third pillar of alternative protein. The company has so far introduced two products, a whole cut alternative steak and chicken breast. The mycelium steak was piloted at a restaurant in Boulder, Colorado last year, and the chicken alternative was only offered to select consumers that applied to taste test it. Through the versatility of mycelium, it is likely that Meati will be able to create a wide variety of alternative protein analogs.

This most recent round of capital will be used to develop an 80,000 square foot production plant in preparation for the startup’s commercial launch. According to the Forbes article, Meati’s goal is to be able to produce enough of its alternative protein in its new facility that would be the equivalent of 4,500 cows in a single day.

The Good Food Institute reported that approximately $1 billion has been invested into companies using fermentation to develop alternative protein. That being said, Meati faces a few competitors in this space. AtLast had an impressive funding round earlier this year ($40M), and is currently developing new alternative protein analogs alongside its existing bacon product. Prime Roots uses fermentation and fungi to craft various protein alternatives, including bacon, chicken, lobster, and beef. Focusing on the B2B realm, Mushlabs also ferments mycelium to create alternative proteins products.

Meati has stated that the commercial launch of its first product will be sometime in 2022. According to an article published on Techcrunch, the first commercial product will likely be a mycelium-based jerky.

I Tried Meati Foods Mycelium-Based Steak, it was Definitely Meaty

Usually, you serve steak with mushrooms. But on my recent visit to SALT Bistro in Boulder, CO, I ordered a steak made out of mushrooms. Well, fermented fungi to be exact.  

Emergy Foods, also based in Colorado, is the company behind the Meati Foods brand of mycelium-based steak. The promise of mycelium is that it can better mimic the look and mouthfeel of whole cuts of meat. Getting those textures and flavors right isn’t easy, which is why companies like Impossible and Beyond started with ground products like burgers. 

So when SALT added the “Bahn Meati Sandwich,” I had to make the trip to try it out. Coming in at a whopping $16, it was quite a stretch for my millennial budget. It is served on a house-made ciabatta bun, with a pile of pickled veggies and sriracha aioli. (I recommend ordering it with a side of the polenta fries.) 

When it arrived, I immediately noticed how juicy the thick slices of “steak” in the sandwich were. If I didn’t know it was plant-based, I easily would have confused it for real meat. As I took my first bite the word “succulent” popped into mind. It had a vague savory/umami flavor, and a flesh-like texture. This might be a turnoff for vegans who shun meat in the first place. But as a vegan myself, I was actually hoping for a little more of the fattiness and char of steaks I ate in my pre-vegan days. 

Mycelium-based meat alternative products are newer in the plant-based space but there are several companies offering up fungi as a meat alternative. Prime Roots uses koji, the same fungus used to make miso, to create a realistic plant-based bacon. AtLast is also creating an alternative bacon product by growing sheets of mycelium. 

Meati Foods initially plans to offer their steaks in upscale restaurants to build their brand and manage a young supply chain. On its Instagram account, Meati announced that they are working to get Meati in different cities by Fall 2020. I look forward to ordering it again, though my budget would much prefer to see strips of Meati on a $3 plant-based carne asada taco in the future.