| Project Detail |
In a public enquiry made by the European Commission, 80% of respondents were willing to reduce their meat intake to help reduce the emission of greenhouse gases (GHG), and 74% intended to change their diet to improve their health. However, current meat analogues in the market are not a healthy alternative, since they are ultra-processed, full of binders and additives, and among their ingredients, we can find high amounts of sugars and sodium, maltodextrins or soy isolate, that are not indicated for a healthy diet. In addition, these products are nor ecological, since they are highly resource-demanding, mainly in terms of water consumption, wastewater generation and energy use, and also cause important GHG emissions. On top of that, the existing meat analogues are rejected by consumers due to their off-taste & bad texture that does not resemble to meat.
In response to this situation, Millow has developed to TRL6 a novel solid state dry fermentation production technology for mycelium-plant meat analogues. This highly scalable and cost-effective innovative process accelerates mycelium growth from most typical 3-7 days periods to <24h, reducing required water input by 97%, energy use requirements by 67%, and CO2 footprint by 95% compared to benchmark methods based on liquid fermentation. The resulting products have neutral taste, pleasant texture that mimics meat attributes without the use of artificial binders, is minimally processed, healthy, nutritional and eco-friendly.
In the MEATLOW project, we aim to optimise and automate its innovative technology to reach TRL8 and commercial status, and introduce our disruptive plant-fungi products in the EU meat substitute market by 2026. To do that, our highly skilled team of scientific, management and marketing professionals is determined to lead this project to success. |
