Revo Foods, the Austrian 3D food printing pioneer, and Mycorena, the Swedish Mycoprotein pioneer, have begun a research collaboration to investigate the suitability of Mycorena’s previously developed and adapted mycoprotein, which is better suited for 3D food printing. The collaboration will place a particular emphasis on vegan seafood alternatives and whole cut products.
By combining mycoprotein’s meat-like properties with the unrestricted shaping capabilities of 3D food printing, a whole new realistic meat-like product segment can be created.
The goal is to significantly close the gap between animal products and plant-based or vegan alternatives, resulting in greater market adoption of meat alternatives. The printable mycoprotein, like Mycorena’s current mycoprotein ingredient Promyc, will have a soft fibrous texture, light colour, and neutral taste, making it an excellent option for meat analogues, particularly seafood alternatives.
Need for Vegan Seafood Alternatives
Consumers are increasingly interested in meat and vegan seafood alternatives. However, the most appealing options, such as whole cut steak or fish fillet, remain difficult to obtain. The most promising technology for producing these high-value products is 3D food printing.
Because of their inherent fibrous behaviour, healthy vegan ingredients such as mycoprotein are of particular interest for the production of whole cut alternatives. However, this fibrous behaviour may be limiting for certain processing methods, such as 3D food printing.
“We have always been interested in food 3D printing and saw that creating a printable mycelium material would probably open doors to creating amazing, unique products. With this technology, the possibilities for texture and form are on another level compared to current meat analogues, being restricted only by imagination, not processing methods.”
– Paulo Teixeira, CIO at Mycorena
Developing 3D Printable Mycoprotein
Revo Foods is an Austrian company that is developing new food processing technologies, including 3D food printing, for high-quality plant-based seafood products. Some of the company’s first products include salmon and tuna substitutes, which are now sold in over 3000 locations across Europe, making Revo Foods a leader in plant-based seafood. This makes Revo Foods an ideal partner for Mycorena in bringing its innovation to market as quickly as possible. Revo Foods and Mycorena will collaborate on a project to investigate the use of mycoprotein for 3D food printing in order to develop new seafood alternatives.
“Mycoprotein is a very interesting ingredient for vegan seafood alternatives, however, we were previously limited in using it in our proprietary 3D food printing process as the fibrous behaviour was altered. With this new collaboration with Mycorena, we see huge potential to develop the printable mycoprotein further, which can lift meat/seafood alternatives to the next quality level, necessary for large-scale consumer adoption.”
– Robin Simsa, CEO at Revo Foods
When compared to more traditional production methods such as extrusion or moulding, the superior advantage of food 3D printing is the ability to create complex products with much more realistic sensory properties and mouthfeel. This eliminates the need for costly tooling and can save storage space and time by allowing for on-demand production rather than batch production. One common limitation of the technique is material selection, as printers can often only print pastes or mixtures with the appropriate fluidity, resulting in printed products with a fibrous texture, such as Promyc, an extremely promising ingredient for food producers.
“We are very excited to finally reveal our collaboration with Revo Foods. We believe we will create some truly unique products here, making it easy for consumers to enjoy delicious seafood in a healthy and sustainable way.”
– Kristina Karlsson, R&D Manager at Mycorena
3D Food Printing and mycoprotein are both hot trends in FoodTech as a technique and a material on their own, making the combination of the two a completely new field of development that has yet to be fully explored in the alternative protein sector.
