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They are alternative proteins goraka. Supermarket refrigerator shelves feature plant-based burgers, bacon, sausages, and creatively named comrades: chik’ns, mylks, and sheezes. In the UK alone, meat substitute sales rose by £ 582 million ($ 800 million) in 2014 £ 816 million ($ 1.1 billion) in 2019. And where customers are going, venture capital is continuing. In 2020, alternative protein companies raised £ 2.2 billion ($ 3.1 billion) in funding. Of that, nearly 600 million pounds ($ 700 million) went to Impossible Foods, along with Beyond Meat, which redefined what people expected from vegetarian burgers as a drunken, bad, plant-based burger.
Stylish burgers might be the current stars of alternative protein, but she is preparing a much more modest dish for her time. The mushroom renaissance has arrived – and the setup of startups is ready to take this misunderstood delicacy to a new level.
Turning mushrooms into protein is not new. In the mid-1960s, a British filmmaker turned into a flour baron named J. Arthur Rank in search of a way to convert all his excess wheat into protein for human consumption. Rank scientists studied more than 3,000 different fungi, but on April 1, 1968, they found what they had found in a composter in a village in the south of High Wycombe, England. The fungus – later identified as * Fusarium Venenatum * – perfectly suited Rank’s requirements. It was easily grown in fermenters, making it a relatively tasty flavor of high-protein foods called mycoproteins. They were allowed to sell this mycoprotein by 1985, but the first products — a trio of tasty pies — prevented them from mentioning mushrooms in their goods. Instead, this mycoprotein was referred to by its brand name: Quorn. (A quick word on definitions: A fungus is a broad group of fungi, yeasts, and molds. Mushrooms are a fleshy body on the surface of a fungus, but the mycoprotein is usually made from root-like threads that live underground.)
Quorn was a slow smoker. “This was a very main vegetarian food,” says Tim Finnigan, who joined Marlow Foods, a company that makes Quorn in 1988. “There was no real sense of food safety issues and we needed solutions, so we needed to be healthy. New proteins with low environmental impact,” he says. The business did not make a profit until 1998, and over the decades the brand bounced between large food conglomerates and private equity groups. Its current owner is Monde Nissin Corporation, a Philippine-based company that manufactures noodles, crackers and beverages marketed with jelly to protect against stress.
Despite the situation he loves little, Quorn has maintained an almost monopoly on mycoprotein production. For 20 years, Marlow Foods held patents on the fermentation process used to produce Quorn, and although those patents have expired, the company has made great strides in producing mycoprotein on an industrial scale. Quorn’s mycoprotein is made in 150,000-liter fermenters, while the fungi are left in continuous hoops, while they are fed with a sugar solution made from wheat. After about four days, the mushrooms are ready to harvest at a rate of two tons per hour for the next 30 days. The mycoprotein freezes, which pushes the long strands together, giving Quorn a distinctive chicken-like texture. From now on, the mycoprotein is flavored and processed into any of the long lists of analog meats: minced meat, fish fingers, kebabs, dinosaur turkeys and – famous –Gregg’s sausage rolls vegan.
But a new wave of mycoprotein companies predicts a future beyond turkey dinosaurs. “Mycoprotein is becoming more of an ingredient,” says Ramkumar Nair Mycorena, CEO of the Swedish company. “Our goal is to be a supplier of ingredients to all food companies that want to make vegan products.” Although Quorn is a marketplace in the direct sale of consumer mycoproteins, Nair intends to provide technology and ingredients to companies that want to create meat-free meats but are not experts in home-made. To date, Mycorena has partnered with Swedish brands to release mycoprotein-based meatballs, sausages and chicken nuggets. The company is developing bacon, sausages, jerky and protein balls.
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