Comment: The Untapped Power of Fungi for Food Angel Li
W e are eating our way to extinction and that is not an overstatement – the global food system is one of the main culprits of the climate crisis, responsible for one-third of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Our insatiable appetite for meat is also detrimental to planetary health, as the livestock industry accounts for 14.5% of all anthropogenic GHG emissions. A study conducted by Oxford researchers Joseph Poore and Thomas Nemecek advocates that cutting back on meat and dairy is one of the most effective ways to reduce our environmental footprint – meat and dairy provide only 18% of calories and 37% of protein, but they use 83% of farmland and emit 60% of agriculture’s GHG emissions. While the destructive impact of food production remained an elephant in the room at the climate change discussion for some obscure reason (only at the recent Climate Conference (COP27) in Egypt in November 2022 was the issue finally addressed), the past decade has witnessed the exponential growth of FoodTech companies producing proteins made from plant sources, such as pea and soy. In 2019, Beyond Meat became the first plant-based IPO, generating buzz and excitement around meat alternatives. Impossible Foods and Eat Just have also raised a staggering amount of funds. Fermented protein companies have also emerged in recent years. According to the Good Food Institute’s 2021 Fermentation State of the Industry report, there was a 20% increase of known companies dedicated to fermentation- enabled alternative proteins from the previous year (88). Fermentation companies raised $1.69 billion in 2021, nearly tripling the amount in 2020.
Advantages of fermented proteins Proteins derived from fungi for human consumption are not entirely new, as they have been on the market for almost 40 years. Mycoprotein, the protein derived from fungi, has a nutrition profile comparable to, if not superior to, animal protein. It is listed alongside soy, legumes and pulses as healthy protein sources in the UK’s national dietary guidelines Eat Well Guide . Mycoprotein is an all-natural, whole food that has a meat-like texture and is high in protein and fibre, while being low in fat, cholesterol, sodium and sugar. One major advantage of fermented fungi proteins is their smaller environmental footprint. Fungi can grow quickly and efficiently in a bioreactor, resulting in a lower carbon footprint – lifecycle analysis confirms that mycoprotein is on the lower end of the spectrum when it comes to carbon footprint. Despite its promising potential to be a crucial protein source of sustainable diets, many fermented protein startups have yet to reach scalability. The white paper entitled To make the bio- economy real, develop for scalability and creditworthiness released by Blue Horizon and Olon identifies three major challenges for fermentation of proteins: go-to-market strategy with projected target price and cost; a scalable process with the right micro-organism to deliver the necessary production cost and scale; finance biomanufacturing capacity. Scalability and price parity of fermented proteins Fermentation capacity is one crucial obstacle; the next open slot is estimated to be in 2024, so it is increasingly common for fermentation companies to build their own commercial
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