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mycoprotein

We Tried Goodside Foods Meatless Crumbles Made by MycoTechnologies Mushroom Fermentation Technology

Having gone to numerous CES shows, I’ve developed a few survival strategies for the big tech conference: Bring hand sanitizer, wear comfortable shoes, and eat food whenever you get a chance.

While that last rule is mostly because food lines at CES are usually insanely long, as of late, it also applies whenever a company introduces a new plant-based food. And this year, three years after Impossible Foods debuted their second-generation plant-based burger at CES, we had a chance to try a new alt-meat in the form of Goodside Foods meatless crumbles.

Goodside Foods crumbles, a texturized pea and rice protein blend fermented by mycelia, debuted last week at CES 2022. The product is the first under MycoTechnology’s new consumer-facing brand. According to the company, Myco’s natural fermentation process makes their plant protein easier to digest and removes any off notes from plant-based meat alternatives. Interestingly, the product is packaged in a dry, shelf-stable form that is activated by water or broth. Once activated, the crumbles can be served in meat-based products such as pasta sauces or chili.

I decided to drop by the booth and give Goodsides crumbles a try. The company was serving up chili made with the new crumbles, the other usual chili fixings, and a plant-based cheese made by the company’s technology.

How’d it taste? Pretty darn good. I’ve tried both Impossible and Beyond ground beef alternatives in chili and pasta, and the Goodside Foods’ crumbles were on par with both of these products.

What I didn’t do was try the crumbles on their own in, say, a hamburger patty, so I can’t give a verdict on its standalone flavor. However, since the crumbles essentially gave me the same experience in chili as, say, a ground beef, it tells me Goodside Foods has really nailed the mouthfeel of a ground meat product (which is where many of the early plant-based meat products I’ve tasted fall down).

I also have to say, I like the idea of a dry, shelf-stable alt meat product (that isn’t, well, spam). While most plant-based meats freeze well and many – like Impossible – have pretty long refrigerator shelf-lives, the reality is sometimes we all get busy. Like others, I have forgotten to put a package of alt-meat in the freezer before it spoiled. With a shelf-stable product like Goodside’s crumbles, you can load up your pantry and not have to worry about spoilage.

If you’d like to try Goodside Food’s crumbles, you can order them online.

And, if you’re curious to try more mushroom-powered food, you may not have to wait long. The company was also showing off a mushroom milk at CES (ed note: it tastes like Oatly), which Goodside hopes to start shipping in Q1 or Q2 of this year.

You can see the chili made with Goodside’s crumbles in the video below.

The Spoon Tries GoodSide Foods Meatless Crumbles at CES 2022

Forget Plants. Alt-Meat Needs More Mycoprotein

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Of the three pillars of alternative protein, plant-based is getting the most mainstream attention and cultivated meat is the currernt darling of VC investors. But fermentation may be the most practical in terms of both cost and scalability, and one area of that segment turning heads of late is mycoprotein. 

From an affordability and nutritional point of view, mycoprotein has a boatload of advantages over other forms of alternative protein — a point underscored this week when The Spoon’s Chris Albrecht profiled a company called Kernel Mycofoods. In their own words, the folks behind the Buenos Aires, Argentina-based company are currently on a mission to “make a product that [is] comparable without a price that will exclude the emerging markets.”

But Kernel isn’t the only company hoping to bring mycoprotein to the forefront, which makes now a good time to take a closer look into what this segment of fermentation is and why it matters to alternative protein.

Mycoprotein is a single-cell protein made from a naturally occurring filamentous fungus called fusarium venenatum. To get mycoprotein, fungi spores are fermented alongside glucose in fermentation tanks in a process similar to that of brewing beer. The entire operation produces a pasty, doughy texture that resembles a chicken breast. 

Up to now, the most well-known application of mycoprotein is as the main ingredient of Quorn’s meat analogues. But as noted above, several other companies are now getting recognition for their use of mycoprotein as an alternative to traditional meat. That list includes Kernel Mycofoods as well as Better Meat Co., which opened its production facility last month, and food giant Unilever. The latter is producing a mycoprotein called Abunda through a partnership with Scottish company Enough. 

Experts say mycoprotein is high in fiber, low in sodium, has an inherently meaty texture, and is rich in amino acids. Kernel, for example, says its mycoprotein has a higher protein digestibility-corrected amino acid score than beef, soy, or wheat gluten.

Mycoprotein falls into the “biomass fermentation” category, as opposed to traditional or precision fermentation (though the lines between all three can be blurred). Because of this, its biggest advantage compared to other forms of alt-protein is its ability to scale at a lower price point. The Good Food Institute noted in its 2020 State of the Industry report on fermentation that biomass fermentation offers “well-established examples of scalability and cost reduction suitable for alternative protein applications.” 

Mycoprotein specifically has a number of other advantages. 

Versatility is a big one. Mycoprotein can be used on its own, as Quorn does with it, or it can be blended with traditional meat to enhance the latter’s flavor and nutritional profile. For example, it could reduce the amount of cholesterol found in a traditional burger patty.

Mycoprotein also already has an established track record, having been approved for use in food products in the early 1980s. That point alone suggests companies won’t face the same types of regulatory hurdles they do with, say, cultured meat. 

And as an alternative to plant-based meat analogues like those of Beyond and Impossible, mycoprotein is a potentially much more eco-friendly operation since it doesn’t require land to grow plants or significant amounts of downstream processing to get the meaty texture consumers want.

Of all these things, though, nutrition might just be the main driver behind mycoprotein. Citing panelists at the recent IFT FIRST event, Food Navigator recently reported that “consumers increasingly want products that are nutritionally comparable to or better for them than animal protein – something the current industry is not fully delivering.” The “current industry” in this case are plant-based analogues from the likes of Beyond and Impossible, companies that talk at length about elements like texture and mouthfeel but very little about their products nutritional profiles. Nutrition will, according to IFT FIRST panelists, be the “disrupting” factor in the near term when it comes to alternative proteins.

All of those factors mean mycoprotein could well become the breakout star of the alt-protein sector by the end of the year.

More Headlines

Plant-Based Cheese Company Nobell Foods Raises $75M – The company will use the new funds to commercialize its first plant-based cheese products, including mozzarella, which the company makes from soybeans that are genetically edited to produce casein. 

Bezos-Backed NotCo Raises $235M for Plant-Based Alternatives – This new capital will allow NotCo to expand into new product categories in North America and scale its proprietary A.I. platform. 

Redefine Meat Launches 5 “New Meat” Plant-Based Proteins in Israel – Plant-based meat company Redefine Meat announced five new products are now available at select Israeli restaurants and hotels. 

 

 

Kernel Mycofoods Wants to Make Affordable Fermented Protein for Emerging Markets

Whether or not you believe plant-based proteins are healthier for you or a way to save the planet, the one thing we can agree on is that they are not cheap. Over at my local Safeway I can buy a six-pack of Impossible Burger patties (24 oz.) for $15.99, or I can by a 10-pack (40 oz.) of Safeway-branded beef patties for $8.99. For families on tight food budgets, that $7 dollar difference is a huge deal.

Based in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Kernel Mycofoods is on a mission to bridge this price gap and deliver sustainable, healthy, plant-based protein at an affordable price for people around the world. “We started looking at how could we make a product that was comparable without a price that will exclude the emerging markets,” Kernel CFO Miguel Neumann told me last week by video chat.

As Neumann explained to me, there are plenty of markets around the world clamoring for a plant-based protein option, but aren’t able to sell a $7 burger because people there can’t afford. So Kernel turned to fungi.

The basis of Kernel’s product is the Fusarium venenatum strain of fungi, which has already been approved for consumption by regulatory bodies including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and The European Food Safety Authority. Additionally, Kernel says that growing its protein requires less water and land use than beef, chicken or soy, and produces fewer CO2 emissions than raising beef or chicken.

Using precision fermentation, Kernel is able to transform this fungi into a mycoprotein that it says has a higher protein digestibility-corrected amino acid score than beef, soy and wheat gluten. The company isn’t just fermenting fungi, however. It is also using computer vision and artificial intelligence to adjust the fermentation process to achieve different outcomes for its protein. Neumann told me that they have researchers examining each spore on the fungi on a microscopic level. With that information, they can change certain factors in the fermentation process to change something like the protein’s texture.

Kernel isn’t in the business of creating its own line of myco-burgers, however. “There are plenty of companies that are producing a lot of very loyal customers,” Neumann said. “We can not go into a straight fight with them.” Instead, the company will sell its protein to CPG companies for use in plant-based burgers, crackers and other types of consumer products.

Kernel may not want to fight for marketshare with other consumer brands, but it will be facing plenty of competition in the overall mycoprotein space. Fermentation is a hot technology right now, and there are a number of players using the technology to transform fungi into mycoprotein. Unilever is using Enough’s Abunda mycoprotein as an ingredient in plant-based meat from The Vegetarian Butcher brand. Tyson and Kellogg both invested in MycoTechnologies last year. And Better Meat Co. opened up its production facility last month to create its Rhiza mycoprotein.

Neumann said Kernel should be able to launch at scale in January of 2022, at which point the price should drop from its current cost of $3 per kilo to $1 per kilo. As it grows, hopefully the company can continue to bring those prices down so that more markets around the world do indeed have the opportunity to enjoy Kernel’s plant-based protein.

Nature’s Fynd Raises $350M Series C for its Microbial Protein

Nature’s Fynd, which makes protein from microbes that originated in geothermal springs of Yellowstone National Park, announced today that it has raised a $350 million Series C round of funding. The round was led by SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2, with participcation from new investors including Blackstone Strategic Partners, Balyasny Asset Management, Hillhouse Investment, EDBI, SK Inc. and Hongkou, as well as other existing investors. This brings the total amount raised by Nature’s Fynd to more than $500 million.

The company’s protein is called Fy, and it’s a fermented fungi protein derived from the Fusar­i­um strain flavolapis microbe. Because Fy is grown through fermentation, the cultivation of the protein requires less land, water and energy than traditional agriculture. Fy is a complete protein with 9 essential amino acids, and it can be used to make alternative meat and dairy products. In February of this year, Nature’s Fynd announced its first two Fy-based products: a dairy-free cream cheese and a meatless breakfast patty. The company also makes a dairy-free yogurt that was eaten on camera by Bill Gates (a Nature’s Fynd investor) and Anderson Cooper during a segment on 60 Minutes earlier this year.

Fermentation has been dubbed the third pillar of alternative protein, alongside cell-based and plant-based protein. We have seen a wave of startups using fermentation technology to bring variety of animal-free products to market. Perfect Day and Remilk use fermentation to create dairy proteins. Nourish Ingredients ferments yeast to make plant-based fats. SuperBrewed ferments microbes to create a vegan protein powder than can be used in plant-based cheese and milks. And Better Meat Co. recently launched its own fermentation production facility to create its mycoprotein-based Rhiza ingredient.

All of this activity has also helped attract plenty of funding over the past year and a half. According to data from the Good Food Institute and Pitchbook, fermentation startups received $590 million in funding in 2020. In addition to Nature’s Fynd’s haul announced today, last month Motif Foodworks, which uses microbial engineering and precision fermentation to create novel food ingredients, raised $226 million.

Nature’s Fynd said it will use its new funding to expand its production capacity, add new products to its lineup, and set the stage for its international growth.

Better Meat Co. Completes Its Production Facility for Fermented Mycoprotein Ingredients

Plant-based ingredient maker Better Meat Co.’s new fermentation plant, which will produce the company’s mycoprotein ingredient Rhiza, is up and running as of today in Sacramento, California, according to a press release sent to The Spoon. 

Rhiza is a fungi-based protein analogue with a naturally meaty texture and neutral taste. Because it is a whole food, it requires less processing than, say, pea protein, to get a meat alternative customers would actually want to eat. Better Meat Co. says the product can be used either on its own, as a complete replacement for meat, or as a “meat enhancer” that gets blended with traditional protein. 

To get Rhiza, the company uses a fermentation process where fungi feeds on a basic crop such as a potato to create a biomass that can be harvested with minimal processing. The process is similar to those of Quorn or Enough, companies that also use fermentation-based mycoprotein production. 

Since Better Meat Co. is a business-to-business company, it will sell Rhiza to food companies that can use it in their own products. Adding an ingredient like Rhiza to an existing meat product can improve the latter’s overall nutritional profile. For example, it could reduce the amount of cholesterol typically found in a traditional burger patty. The company also claims its product has more iron than traditional beef, more protein than eggs, and more fiber than oats.

The new facility in Sacramento will include both lab and office space. It will primarily serve as a R&D facility in addition to producing “thousands of pounds of finished product per month,” according to today’s news release. 

Unilever Partners With Enough to Add Fungi-Based Protein to Plant-Based Meat Lineup

Univever has had Enough.

Or, rather, will have Enough through a partnership with the Scotland-based company that develops a biomass mycoprotein called Abunda. The two companies announced the partnership today that will add the fungi-based protein to Unilever’s plant-based meat brand it acquired in 2018, The Vegetarian Butcher.

From the release:

Plant-based foods is one of Unilever’s fastest growing segments and we’re delighted to partner with ENOUGH to develop more sustainable protein products that are delicious, nutritious, and a force for good,” said Carla Hilhorst, EVP of R&D for Foods & Refreshment at Unilever. “We’re excited by the potential that this technology has for future innovations across our portfolio, and we can’t wait to launch more plant-based foods that help people cut down on meat, without compromising on taste.

Enough’s Abunda mycoprotein is developed through a fermentation process that feeds sugars from grain crops such as wheat to create a whole food biomass product the company claims uses 90% less water and feed inputs than producing beef. The company, formerly called 3F BIO, is in the process of building a 50 thousand-ton capacity facility to scale up production of Abunda for partners like Unilever.

Enough is just one of many companies producing fungi meat alternative ingredients through fermentation. Some, like Prime Roots and Mycovation are focused on mycelium-derived ingredients. Enough and others like fungi-meat pioneer Quorn and Italy’s Pura, are focused on fermentation-based mycoprotein production.

For Unilever, this is the second time in the last 12 months the large multinational food company has added new plant-based ingredients to its lineup through partnerships with startups. Last year, the company moved into microalgae protein through a partnership with Algenuity.