Fermentation

Mushlabs Partners With Bitburger Brewery Group to Upcycle Beer Byproducts

Berlin-based biotech startup Mushlabs has announced a partnership with Bitburger Brewery Group, one of Germany’s largest private breweries.

As part of the collaboration, Mushlabs will use byproducts from Bitburger’s beer production to make edible fermented mycelium. Additionally, Bitburger will provide Mushlabs with increased production capacity.

“It is possible to simultaneously increase the efficiency, profitability, and sustainability of historical food production systems.”

Worldwide, Mushlabs is one of the first startups to use upcycled ingredients to ferment mycelium. Bitburger has previously recycled its byproducts by supplying them to the agricultural sector, but the new collaboration will improve sustainability even further by allowing Mushlabs to reduce the distance its materials are transported.

Creating a circular economy

This will help to lower Mushlabs’ carbon footprint, making fermentation an even more efficient way of producing protein. Through the collaboration, the two companies hope to provide an example of how the waste of resources can be prevented, creating a circular economy.

Mushlabs partners with Bitburger Brewery Group
© Mushlabs

Funding round

In 2020, Mushlabs raised $10 million in Series A funding, saying it would use this to “bring about a meaningful and lasting change to our food system through our fermentation technology”. The company found success after participating in the ProVeg Incubator in 2018-19, and was also featured at last year’s Future Food-Tech Summit.

“Mushlabs’ technology is able to address the sustainability and supply security issues plaguing our current food system,” said Dr. Thibault Godard, CSO at Mushlabs. “We can utilize the full potential of natural resources by recovering the nutrients from valuable industrial food leftovers and reinjecting them back into local food economies. In doing so, we show that it is possible to simultaneously increase the efficiency, profitability, and sustainability of historical food production systems.”




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