Startup that turns mushrooms into walls getting into lab-grown meat

Ecovative

• 
  Ecovative, a startup that made a name for itself with its
  sustainable packing and building materials made from mushrooms,
  is planning a pivot into
  lab-grown meat.
• The company wants its mushroom scaffolding to be a
  central material for startups aiming to create
  real meat from labs without the need for
  slaughter.
• The material could have uses for plant-based “meat”
  companies like the Bill Gates-backed bleeding veggie burger
  startup
  Impossible Foods, too.

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A startup that makes environmentally-friendly packaging for IKEA
is planning a big transition into lab-grown meat.

Ecovative — which made a name for itself by inking deals with
brands like IKEA and Dell to swap styrofoam containers for

packaging grown from fungi — now wants to use its
mushroom-growing capabilities to become the backbone of the
effort to make
meat without slaughter.

It might sound like an odd pivot. But a critical obstacle for the
“cell-based” (or “clean”) meat
industry is taking the raw materials for meat — lab-grown
cells from the fat and muscle tissues of chickens, pigs, and cows
— and crafting them into materials that mimic the complex
structure and texture of a
marbled steak or sinewy chicken breast.

Several startups in the space claim to have succeeded in making
prototype products that take the form of
sausages, burgers, and meatballs. But these products involve
essentially smashing together a mix of muscle and fat tissues —
not creating actual pieces of flesh that mirror the real thing.
What could be missing is a good scaffold, a delicate structure on
which the cells can thrive.

Ecovative wants its mushroom technology to be that scaffold. The
company’s existing structures — boxes, walls, light fixtures and
even a leather-like fabric called
Mylo — are made from mushroom roots (or mycelium)
mixed with discarded farm materials like corn stalks.
Ecovative has recently been experimenting with growing animal
cells on materials made from similar ingredients.

“The key thing mycelium does is go from a single-celled organism
to a 3D structure in space,” Eben Bayer, Ecovative’s co-founder
and CEO, told Business Insider. “We’ve been growing animal cells
on it and they’ve been growing really well.”

If it works, the partnership could help usher in the first
slaughter-free products with the texture and structure of steaks
and fillets.

The mushroom’s unique structure is hard to find elsewhere in the
vegetarian-friendly organism kingdom. Plants can only do so much.
But fungi knows no such boundaries.

Shutterstock/hlphoto

“If you look at plant scaffolding, you’re limited to the geometry
of something like a spinach leaf,” Bayer said. “With mycelium, we
can make a sheet that’s many feet long and however thick. We can
control the density. It’s this massive scaffold you can grow
relatively inexpensively.”

Ecovative’s mushroom-powered structure could have uses beyond the
cell-based meat space as well. In the plant-based food arena, for
example, mycelium could be used as the foundation for new, even
meatier versions of already popular vegetarian items like the
Bill Gates-backed “bleeding”
Impossible Burger or the
Beyond Burger.

Those companies could essentially “use our scaffolding and infuse
it with their ingredients and flavorings,” Bayer said.

Several other startups aiming to replace animal products with
vegetarian options have turned to fungi for its preferential
texture and naturally neutral flavor.

Wild Earth, a startup making vegan dog treats, uses koji —
the fungi that gives soy sauce and miso soup their umami kick —
in its products. Similarly, startup
Terramino Foods is exploring using koji as the central
ingredient for its “salmon” burgers.

For now, Ecovative isn’t sure which path in the sustainable food
arena — whether it’s cell-based meat or plant-based meat
alternatives — the company will end up pursuing the most heavily.
The company’s overarching goal is to make its mycelium design platform
available to everyone.

Regardless, Bayer said he sees a place for his company at the
food-of-the-future table.

“This is the next natural step in this evolution to use natural
products to make things,” Bayer said. “As the biology advances
and the tech advances alongside it, you’re going to see more
people building on this platform.”