Revo Foods and Mycorena, two innovative FoodTech companies, have joined forces to reinvent 3D printed food using customised mycoprotein. The EU-funded grant will be used to develop 3D printable mycoprotein in order to commercialise first-of-their-kind vegan seafood alternatives.
Mycorena and Revo Foods first announced their collaboration in October 2022, and the new developments have now received EU funding. The project’s goal is to create new technologies and processes for producing mycoprotein for additive food manufacturing. The companies collaborated to apply for a research grant to advance the project and enable the commercialization of sustainable, whole-cut seafood options.
Developing 3D Printable Mycoprotein
The project’s collaborating partners have been awarded a €1.5 million grant. The funding comes from Vinnova, Forschungsförderungsgesellschaft (FFG), and Eurostars, the EU’s largest international funding programme aimed at enabling collaborative R&D projects across borders. The grants are highly competitive, demonstrating the importance of bringing innovative mycoprotein solutions to market and driving research in FoodTech. The funding is part of the EU’s ‘Farm to Fork’ initiative, which focuses on food industry innovation and sustainability.
Despite the ingredient’s great potential, mycoprotein has not yet been optimised for 3D extrusion, making the companies the first to try customising it for producing whole-cut alternatives. One of mycoprotein’s main advantages is its inherent fibrous structure, which perfectly mimics the texture of soft fish fibres, which is difficult to achieve with current plant-protein processing techniques. Printing with long fibres is difficult, but it has the potential to produce unique products that could revolutionise the whole-cut market for meat/seafood alternatives.
As a result, Mycorena is using its fungi technology expertise to improve the material and enable commercial production. The Swedish company created a method for treating the protein in order to tailor its structural properties and reduce the risk of entanglement during the extrusion process, thereby improving the mycoprotein’s suitability for 3D printing.
“At Mycorena we are constantly striving to be and do better, it is therefore a natural part of our process to keep improving our technology to suit the needs of the next generation of food products. Getting this recognition from such an attractive and competitive initiative like Eurostars further emphasises that the technology we are developing is really an important part of creating a sustainable food system.”
– Paulo Teixeira, Chief Innovation Officer, Mycorena
Revo Foods’ plant-based alternatives to salmon and tuna have already transformed the world of additive food manufacturing. The company’s first products are now available in over 20 European countries. The Austrian startup’s goal is to provide the best plant-based seafood on the market, which may include mycoprotein products in the future.
“We are really happy for the opportunity to explore the exciting new ingredient of mycoprotein in our production process. Mycorena is a leading company in this space, and together with our new process technology for whole-cut alternatives, we believe that we can bring seafood alternatives and additive food manufacturing as a whole to the next level.
– Niccolo Galizzi, Head of Product Development, Revo Foods
Fungi’s meat-like properties open up endless possibilities in additive food processing, and the substantial funding allocated to the project will allow the partners to develop market-leading products. Mycorena and Revo Foods will test the material on a larger scale to advance the project. The combination of mycoprotein and additive food manufacturing is a game-changing innovation that will be implemented in the market for sustainable meat/seafood alternatives, contributing to the development of a resilient food system.
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