By Roel Dreve
The tipping point MYCELIUM
Spawn producer Lambert Spawn Europa in Venlo, the Netherlands was purchased by Ecovative in December. In February, we talked to Ies Hooglugt (Lambert Spawn Europa) and Eben Bayer (Ecovative) about their new venture, and a revolution in the making.
E
‘We see a great future for
producers of a
highly valuable product instead of a commodity’
covative is a mycelium technology firm, that designs and grows sustai- nable materials using a system that can be applied to make food (meat substitutes), vegan ‘leather’, construction materials and more. CEO Eben Bayer and CCO Gavin McIntyre (not related to the Lambert McIntyres) were inspired to found Ecovative Design (2007) while attending an ‘Inventor’s Studio’ at Rensselaer Polytechnic institute, a few hours north of New York City. In 2006, they first experimented with the idea of using mycelium not in a way we are used to - for growing mushrooms - but as a basic material for planet proof, compostable alter- natives for traditional packaging like styrofoam, and other applications. “This was a totally novel idea. Before 2006, mycelium had not been used for alternative purposes at all, and many people thought we were completely nuts in the beginning..”, says Bayer. “..but because it was so new, it was easy to patent the produc- tion processes.”
Basically, it comes down to growing mycelium on substrate in special growth chambers that are pretty similar to the growing rooms in the edible mushroom industry. The mycelium is ‘harvested’ on an industrial scale before any mushrooms emerge. The mycelium sheets, called ‘AirMycelium’ can be then used as a semi-finished product, that can be applied to a myriad of purposes. Ecovative also binds mycelium with other plant material to create ‘MycoComposite’ for construction applications.
Patented growth
Since its inception, Ecovative has grown in multiple ways and directions, not unlike the mycelium they so deftly employ, and at a speed that matches the way Bayer talks, working through partnerships all over the world with companies like IKEA and Ecco, and licensing its intellectual property rights to companies such as Mycelium Materials (see Mushroom Business 105) who produce mycelium foam, Bolt Threads (vegan leather handbags) or Grown bio (Myco-
34 MUSHROOM BUSINESS
Composite). Over the years, the company has successfully obtained substantial grants and funding for their operations. Some (see MB 94) have argued that the strategy of guarding their exclusive intellectual property could block innovation by other manufacturers, but Bayer disagrees: “We just want to protect our big investments to maintain the high quality we deliver, for a competitive price, to grow the market for everyone who steps in - ‘growing the pie together’. If you don’t patent new technology like this, developed following lots of trial and error, the same will happen as with unprotected strain development in the edible mushroom industry; it slows innovation instead”, explains Bayer.
There are competitors out there for sure, like Mogu, or NEFFA, but Ecovative seems to have found the right product-market combination, and is set to blaze a trail as the market leading, non-mushroom mycelium producer, with a global approach and financial backing others could only dream of.
The Lambert connection This was proven once again last December. The connection with the edible mushroom industry would appear to be obvious, but it still must have come as a surprise to many when Ecovative acquired Lambert Spawn Europa in the Nether- lands, a subsidiary of Lambert Spawn in the US. The facility in Venlo only started production in 2019. The acquisition vertically integrates a major spawn supplier under Ecovative’s owner- ship and will enable the company’s further rapid expansion. Lambert Spawn Europa had already been coope- rating with Ecovative for some time, says director Ies Hooglugt: “In 2015 we imported a pallet of ‘goofy stuff’ for Jan Berbee of Grown bio. We had a discussion about the sustainability of spawn transport when we were thinking about a set- ting up a Lambert facility in the Netherlands, because speed spawn has a short shelf life. And even when started in Venlo in 2019, alternative applications of mycelium were still in their
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