UK’s Adamo Foods, creator of fungi-based whole cuts, last week announced it had secured $2.5 million in seed funding to help scale production to pilot levels, expand its team with senior food industry experts, and develop new products, including a chicken breast alternative.
Adamo’s mycelium steak, touted as the first ultra-realistic beef alternative made from fungi, aims to disrupt the whole-cut meat market by offering a cleaner-label, high-protein product with significantly lower environmental impact. The company is gearing up for a limited UK pilot launch, followed by a broader European rollout.
We were excited to finally speak with CEO and founder Pierre Dupuis who tells vegconomist that the team has developed a technology that allows them to effectively mimic animal muscle tissue. “We’re clear and confident that no other companies have developed this technology, and we have filed a patent,” Pierre reveals.
Congratulations on securing $2.5M in your seed round! Can you share how this funding will help Adamo Foods achieve its mission and what your immediate priorities are following this investment?
Thank you, we’re really pleased with our recent funding and very excited for the next steps. Now that we’ve successfully created the highest-quality product and what we believe is the first truly convincing alternative to beef steak, our focus now shifts to scaling up and bringing our products to market.
Our seed round plays an instrumental part in this as increasing our production capacity requires time and capital. We can’t wait for consumers to be able to purchase and enjoy our products so we can have a positive impact on people’s health and our environment- both of which are key to Adamo’s mission.
Your proprietary fermentation process mimics the muscle structure of whole-cut meat. Can you explain more about how this technology works and what is the USP / what sets your whole cut apart from others?
We have developed a unique and proprietary fermentation process based on liquid-state fermentation for scalability. Using unique parameters across media inputs and bioreactor parameters with our selected strain, we are producing mycelium biomass with ground-breaking textural properties.
“We’re clear and confident that no other companies have developed this technology”
This includes dense and long hyphae that essentially allows us to mimic muscle tissue. We’re clear and confident that no other companies have developed this technology, and we have filed a patent. We have also developed a lot of IP during our downstream process.
We are able to realign the dense fibres of our mycelium biomass into a muscle-structure replicating whole-cut meat without adding artificial binders. We add a few, all-natural ingredients (5 ingredients in total with the mycelium) for a highly nutritious and clean-label end product.
There is an ongoing challenge in the meat alternative space due to perceived and propagated concerns around UPFs, how does your product aim to counter these consumer concerns?
Absolutely, consumers are increasingly concerned about UPFs, and sometimes this is justified but sometimes this is based on misinformation.
In any case, the beauty of working with mycelium is that we need very little processing during our production, unlike some other plant-based proteins. We grow natural mycelium, and rely on its inherent fibers developed during our proprietary fermentation process to create a convincing meat-like texture. We only need to add a few natural ingredients (e.g no artificial binders such as methylcellulose) to end up with an ultra-realistic steak structure.
We’re very transparent on what goes into our product and the limited amount of ingredients, and we think this is key to building consumer trust.
With this new funding, you aim to scale production to pilot-scale. Can you provide more details on your production plans and timelines for the UK and broader European rollout?
We aim to launch a limited pilot in the UK later this year, and will then launch in broader foodservice outlets later in 2025. We’re very much looking forward to sharing our products with consumers!
What is your current range and please describe pipeline innovations such as the chicken breast alternatives.
We have already developed a beef steak alternative as well as a whole chicken breast alternative which is extremely close to the real deal. Our NPD pipeline is vast and we plan to launch a realistic alternative to every type of animal whole-cut (pork, fish, lamb, etc.).
How do you foresee the landscape of meat alternatives evolving in the next 5-10 years, and what role do you envision Adamo Foods playing in this future?
We’re recently seeing that consumers have been let down by some meat alternatives that aren’t genuinely healthy or just aren’t good enough. Some products are great, but I’ve personally tried too many products with poor taste/texture that I wouldn’t buy again. It’s now clear that consumers want clean-label healthy products that actually taste great. Taste should always be at the centre of the consumer experience.
“…healthy, juicy and delicious alternatives that even the most committed carnivores will enjoy”
There’s also a huge gap in the market as there aren’t any convincing alternatives to whole-cuts, despite the fact they represent the majority of all the real meat being consumed. Adamo Foods will be leading on this front, with healthy, juicy and delicious alternatives that even the most committed carnivores will enjoy.
Find out more at adamofoods.com
