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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

mycelium

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.

Atlast Food Co. Secures $40M Series A Round to Expand Whole Cut Plant-Based Meat Analogues

Atlast Food Co., which uses mycelium to produce plant-based meat alternatives, announced today in a press release that it has raised a Series A round of $40 million USD to create new whole cut meat alternatives. This latest funding round was led by Viking Global Investors and saw participation from 40 North, AiiM Partners, Senator Investment Group, Stray Dog Capital, Footprint Coalition, Applegate, Stonyfield, and Whole Foods.

This new funding will be used to scale the company’s technology, production, and team to bring its product to a commercial scale. To create the new whole cuts of alternative meat, Atlast is partnering with Ecovative, its parent company. Using Ecovative’s AirMycelium manufacturing platform, Atlast is currently building the largest aerial mycelium farm in the U.S. to supply its production of meat alternatives.

Atlast offers its first product, mycelium-based bacon, through its brand MyEats. Dubbed MyBacon, it consists of six plant-based ingredients, is cholesterol-free, and the serving size of two slices contains 4 grams of protein. The Honest Weight Food Co-op in Albany, New York is the only retailer that carries MyEats bacon right now, but the product will be distributed to more grocery retailers as production picks up.

Mycelium works well as an ingredient for plant-based meat alternatives because of its fibrous texture that can mimic the muscle texture of animal proteins. Additionally, mycelium grows quickly, and its neutral flavor allows for any desired flavor to be absorbed. Meati is another start-up that produces mycelium-based meat alternatives, and the company trialed its mycelium-based steak last summer and is also developing mycelium-based chicken and jerky.

Atlast was not able to disclose exactly what variety of meat analogs it will be developing, but did say that mycelium gives them the opportunity to create a wide variety of meat alternatives like filet mignon, chicken breast, and even fish. The products will be made available to CPG, foodservice, and grocery industries, and Atlast plans on distributing its mycelium meat alternatives to these industries this year.

Emergy Foods Makes Very Realistic-Looking Steak Alternatives From Fermented Mushroom Roots

Today Boulder, CO-based startup Emergy Foods announced the release of its first alternative meat brand, Meati Foods.

Meati Foods will focus on making whole cuts of meat from fermented fungi, also known as mycelium. Unlike most plant-based meats, Meati Foods’ offerings are free of pea, wheat, and soy. According to Emergy Foods CEO Tyler Huggins, who I spoke with over the phone today, opting for mycelium allows Meati to mimic the look and mouthfeel of whole cuts of protein, such as steak and chicken breast, which is difficult to do with other proteins.

In addition to better being able to replicate the texture of meat, mycelium has some inherent nutritional benefits. “It has the same protein profile of meat, and the same quantity [of protein] as chicken or steak,” Huggins told me. It also comes with fiber, which traditional meat doesn’t have.

Photo: Emergy Foods

At first Meati Foods will sell to high-end restaurants in order to build their brand. Huggins said that their products will likely be priced on par with traditional meat at these spots. As they scale he expects they’ll be able to match wholesale meat prices for chicken and beef, They plan to move into retail soon, but are currently limited by production capacity.

Founded in 2016 by two PhD students, Emergy Foods announced back in July that it had closed a $4.8 million funding round and currently has a team of 10.

If you want to try Meati’s realistic-looking steaks, you might not have much longer to wait (provided you’re in the Colorado area). Meati is preparing for a beta launch at the end of 2019 and is expecting to launch in restaurants in early 2020.

Emergy Foods isn’t the first brand to leverage mycelium as a magical ingredient to mimic meat. Prime Roots uses ‘shroom roots to make a variety of animal product alternatives, from bacon to crab cakes to chicken breast. Though it chiefly sells in Europe, alt-meat giant Quorn uses fermented fungi as the base for its wide array of products. There’s also Atlast Foods, a spinoff of Ecovative, which makes mycelium-based scaffolding for use in a myriad of meat alternatives, both plant-based and cell-based.

Based off of their product offerings and target demographics, it looks like Prime Roots will be Meati Foods’ biggest competitor. When I asked Huggins how he’ll differentiate himself, he said that Meati uses a “unique strain of mycelium” which can really accurately imitate meat.

Both companies are looking to begin selling their products in early 2020, so soon we might be able to put both products to a taste test. But with demand for protein alternatives on the rise, there’s plenty of room for more than one player in the fungi-meat game to put down roots.