159. The Future Is Fungi Awards: From Mushroom Dreams to Real-World Things

Susanne [00:00:00] there's so many ways we can collaborate with fungi for the environmental solutions we need. and it's so untapped, it's so early. it's such a massive, wide space and I'm so into, the new frontier and imagination, creativity.

Erum Hey, Carl, how's it going?

Karl things are going great, IAM. It's like we're racing towards the end of the year. There's a lot of exciting things going on, and our podcast has had some very exciting news. Why don't you start talking about it. Iam?

Erum Yes, well. A lot goes on here on the Grow Everything Podcast.

Erum We talk about biotech across different industries, but also things that are on the bleeding edge. So we were talking to Professor Michael Levin of Tufts University and we had this incredible episode with him where he talked about so many intersections between consciousness and living materials and life and decentralized.

Erum Nervous systems. So we're talking about octopus and what does that look like? [00:01:00] And that episode got a lot of love across all of our channels, specifically on YouTube, and a lot of comments as well. And people love Michael Levin. I mean, he is someone you can just listen to for hours because he just takes you on a journey through biology, through molecules, how they interact.

Erum And I was really happy to see that there was this conversation that was happening. What did you think Carl?

Karl I was really happy because clearly there's a lot of Michael Levin fans and there was a couple of comments on YouTube where the people were very much.

Karl fans of the way that we interviewed him. So that made me feel really good. We did a really good job interviewing him. Someone said we provided the clearest explanation of what Michael does, so that is really great. And then, you know, every, great comment or comments are, worthless unless you get some critics.

Karl But you know, we had a few of those as well. And that's always a fun time.

Erum Yes. That's when, you know, you make it, when you get some critics, [00:02:00] when you get some naysayers or whoever else, but the dialogue is happening and that's what's most important.

Karl Exactly. a couple of other things that we wanted to mention before we get into today's episode.

Karl Iram, you flagged Ashley Beckwith, who had been on the podcast before. You noticed that she posted something on LinkedIn. Why don't you talk about that?

Erum Yes, so Ashley Beckwith is this founder, CEO of Foray Biosciences, and we had an amazing episode with her. she talks a lot about plant cultivation and how we can create seeds to create trees versus having to extract trees or.

Erum Use them in the ways that we have been traditionally just chopping them down and growing it. There's a lot of, issues with Monoculturing, forest where it's just one tree versus biodiversity. And she has a very interesting platform. And, when I, we first interviewed Ashley, I was still trying to wrap my head around, what does Foray do?

Erum and there's a lot of companies have their wet lab. [00:03:00] Portion of what they're doing here in the biotech world, and then their software version. So Ashley Bewick posted a video on LinkedIn explaining both sides of the coin, the wet lab, and then the digital lab, the Silicon lab. I don't know how you wanna talk about it.

Erum And I just wanted to highlight that, having founders or leaders of a company get on a video and show how their products work and getting behind the scenes, getting in the lab is such a great way to highlight a company It sounds like a big lift, but it can't be in today's world, right?

Erum All of our phones are cameras. It just takes some time to do, and I wanna encourage more people to put videos out there explaining what they're working on. I think it's a great thing. I learned so much more By watching Ashley in her element. She was in the, she was in her, lab.

Erum She was holding up. Plates. She was going on a laptop and showing what her user experience of the software looks like and how she was using it, how she was [00:04:00] inquiring, and I was like, yes, great job, Ashley.

Karl I agree with that. It's like I know that when you're on Instagram or on TikTok, you're scrolling through lots of videos, but I will always stop for a scientist video.

Karl I do when I have TikTok on my phone, which is not all the time, I always look at side talk or science talk or biotech talk or symbio talk because I wanna see who's out there putting out videos because that is how people consume content. And it doesn't mean that it's the only kind of content that kind of short form content.

Karl I think there. A lot of room for longer form videos, I'd like to see more of those, from founders, but I really appreciate this video that Ashley, has posted. I'll be watching it a couple of times because I just wanna see how she did it. And, it's something that we're doing more of too.

Karl I mean, we've been posting shorts on YouTube. We've been posting our full episodes on YouTube, and it's being very successful. Last week we kind of kicked off a [00:05:00] series about mycelium with Laura Menard of Gob, but Rumble. Let's talk about how that leads us into today's episode.

Erum Yes. So yes, Laura Menard of Gob.

Erum Wow, that was an incredible episode. I just, loved talking to her because not only is she creating a great product made of mycelium, but she's a great science storyteller. She knows how to. Sell without being salesy, and it was a great conversation. And yes, I kicked off this conversation about mycelium and fungi and this exploration into the fungal kingdom material as a platform.

Erum But today's episode is a special one where we feature the founder and winners of the future is fungi. And I will tell you that. It is fungi all the way,all the way down. So,and fungi has been making the news. So let's just kick off a little bit with something that you shared with me, Carl, about MIT chemist, creating fungal [00:06:00] compounds that can treat brain cancer as like a moonshot discussion of fungi.

Erum And then we can talk a little bit more about today's special episode.

Karl I mean, here's the thing. It's like we have in the past had Ebb and Bear of ecova on, and I think Eben and the Ecova team have inspired a lot of people. They've shown how versatile fungi can be for creating construction materials or alternatives to a material like leather.

Karl So it's always interesting to see how other people are using fungi, for example, in, environmental remediation to break down waste.

Karl And so as we were going into this episode, I got this news from MIT.

Karl the news was that these researchers at MIT found a new form of a compound called Verticillium a, which is a fungal compound that has been used since the 1970s for protection against. Pathogens and they're very [00:07:00] difficult to synthesize. I mean, we talk about how challenging it can be to do chemical synthesis, and that's why we turn to a lot of biomanufacturing.

Karl But this lab back in 2009, they found, a way to make a similar compound. I'm reading like how complicated this thing is. It's like10 rings and eight steroid genetic centers. It's too complicated to really get into, but what they found was you can synthesize this using mycelium and so that increases the possibility of producing this molecule and actually getting it into the clinic to treat these kinds of cancers.

Karl So it's really another. demonstration of the power of fungi.

Erum Yeah. Yeah. I think a lot of therapeutics are made through chemical synthesis, and so to be able to make a compound synthetically can be very challenging, can require a lot of energy, require, different types of solvents and everything, but to have a living thing like fungi or bacteria to make complex molecules.

Erum They are [00:08:00] machines. They are factories. And that we are gonna talk a lot about that. on today's episode.

Karl Today we're doing an episode that's kind of a three in one episode where we're gonna be highlighting the Future is Fungi Award, which is a global platform and launchpad for frontier fungal startups and science entrepreneurs leveraging fungi to solve some of humanity's biggest challenges.

Karl This, award was started by Susanne Gloersen, who has a mission to accelerate novel fungi Innovations worldwide as the new frontier in biotech. She's investing in trailblazing fungi startups with the Fungi Collective and Fungi vc, and we're super excited to have Suzanne on to talk about the future is Fungi Award.

Karl let's let Suzanne kick it off to talk about the future is Fungi Award, and then we're gonna do an interview with the winner and the runner up of the Futures Fungi Award. 1.SUSANNE

Erum Suzanne Gloersen, welcome [00:09:00] to the Grow Everything podcast. I am very excited to have you on. I know Carl is, it's been some time since we've been speaking about this. Welcome to the podcast.

Susanne Thank you both.

Erum Yeah. Excited about fungi. We're gonna have some fun with fungi, and the future is fungi.

Erum This is the platform that you've established. Not only do you have this. Future is Fungi Award, and we're gonna have the, winner and runner up on this episode. but you also have a podcast. You've been an advocate about this. It's not an animal, it's not a plant. It's this incredible living material.

Erum So I wanted to continue the conversation that we had. I believe it was either at the Bio Fab Fair or we had a conversation when you did a, an event during Climate Week with the Altru Institute and we were talking about our fascination with fungi and what is it? We had this whole conversation about, okay, did fungi really establish [00:10:00] consciousness in , our early hominid ancestors?

Erum The whole stoned eight theory, but it's much more than that. Although that's a lot, you know, helping us with consciousness is a good thing. Thank you, fungi. But what else? I mean, tell me like where did this fascination and interest and loyalty to fungi start? How did it establish?

Susanne Yeah, so I. I've always been in accessibility in finance and pushing the envelope for change from within, uh, moving capital to more sustainable innovations.

Susanne And I've always been very fascinated by, the super frontier innovations, solar foods producing. Proteins out of the air. Wow. and always been very entrepreneurial. And then I discovered Fungi was actually a Danish friend, wanted to do a alternative protein company seven years ago. That was super early, quite early.

Susanne So that was the first, crack into this, queen dom in kingdom. and then three years ago when I, That was the [00:11:00] second cry. Accelerated, you know, seeing, there's so many ways we can collaborate with fungi for the environmental solutions we need. and it's so untapped, it's so early. it's such a massive, wide space and I'm so into, the new frontier and imagination, creativity.

Susanne So,and then I also saw that it lacked, even though mycelium is a network, it lacked its own ecosystem to help accelerate these innovations. So that's why I jumped out of the role in finance to build a, what I refer as a fungi universe of different initiative. when you come into this, uh.queendom. you never get out. It's a rabbit hole, right? they choose you. There's no way back. So yeah,

Karl That's amazing. So you've built this Future is Fungi Award to be a global launchpad for fungal innovation. What [00:12:00] gaps are there in existing biotech or sustainability ecosystem that you specifically were trying to fill, and why did you think that fungi was the key to filling those gaps?

Susanne First of all, I saw that, there's this incredible potential of fungi to solve environmental challenges.

Susanne This is. biotech that we haven't utilized more, and we know that McKinsey has 60% of input for the global economy can come from biology. And when you have this huge white space, of course we have to accelerate innovations that are possible there and also inspire to new innovations we haven't yet seen.

Susanne Right? there's so many novel innovations here. And then I also saw the need for more awareness racing, right? When I say fungi, people are like, what? You know, on my pizza or on the wall, or even magic mushrooms. So awareness racing. I saw. The need for, of course, backing these innovators with resources, funding, and [00:13:00] commercializing science.

Susanne There's so much game changing science in research that is just stuck there. And lastly, that's why I wanted to, um, build a,quite diverse platform. we need, to bring together. Scientists, startups, corporates, investors, and the wider innovation ecosystem. really bridging those needed to help, catalyze these innovations.

Susanne So that's what I'm trying to do with this, larger platform.

Erum this has been an incredible journey for you. I've seen some of the, early mentions of the Future is Fungi Award. That was like the big, project that you're working on.

Erum And here you are on the other side of it. looking back, you know, you had this pool of 187 applications from 59 countries for this award. So I would love to know what trends or ideas surprised you the most? What does that tell you about where fungal innovation is headed?

Susanne And that's the beauty with the Global Award, where we [00:14:00] welcome all types of innovations, right?

Susanne And specifically highlight novel innovations, right? How can fungi, blaze a new trail for, innovations needed? so I really get to see everything that is moving in fungal innovation across the world. Especially what's Yeah, on the cutting edge. and now we've done two rounds of the war, so there has been some developments since the first award.

Susanne First I can mention some of the cool innovations we've seen and then also some reflections on, well, what this says about this space. again, I'm very into what is super novel we haven't seen before. So of course I have to give credit to the winners, my chroma, replacing, um.Synthetic colors for foods with fungal based colors.

Susanne I'm sure many don't know that we eat petrochemicals or as I say, we eat shit. Who knew? That's, and it's linked to concert. It's linked to concert and yes, fungi can [00:15:00] produce colors. and we also had, Michael Lever with surfactants, for now replacing. Less sustainable, bio-based surfactants.

Susanne And for those who don't know, if surfactants are what makes, cleaning products or cosmetics or even food bind together or foam or clean, you can make, uh, fungal based surfactants. and lastly, diapers with higher road technologies breaking down diapers. and then we also saw super novel things like, firefighting foam from fungi because, you know, the current firefighting foam leaves a lot of chemicals inside houses or in the soil.

Susanne And we can elaborate with fungi to also impacting rainfall. That was a US company impacting rainfall for farmers because they impact the formation of clouds that, Gather around fungal spores. and one more, is, and again, I love the creativity. It was packaging for cosmetics that changes color when the cosmetic isn't working anymore, [00:16:00] when you can't use it.

Susanne And it's not, you know, it didn't get, to the top. We look at, you know, very. we look at environmental significance of the innovations, but it shows the diversity. And back to your question, Adam, on what we're seeing. So I would say the first year there was also a lot of focus on micro remediation, which is another, key passion areas for mine.

Susanne You know, fungi is a decomposer and cleaner in nature, and we have so much polluted soil. 55% of soil in Europe is. Or is, degraded. We have chemicals, pitfalls, and we can remediate with fungi. So that was quite, present in the first award. we had a micro battery winning now, which I have expected.

Susanne we saw electronics in the first award. We saw that now as well. a lot of agriculture applications, but I've been expecting to see more. I'm on applications across, these everyday [00:17:00] products as I talk about rice of colors or, surfactants or, fragrances. and that'd be so much more this year of, surfactant based companies.

Susanne so there were some takeaways.

Susanne I just want to say again about the winner that you guys are interviewing. In the US now with the ban on the red three collar things are really shifting. And now we have General Mills saying that they're facing out chemical colors. So what I love with the word, while the setup is, it's shoutout to.

Susanne awareness racing about things we don't know about, right? And we eat it, as I said. And also, fungi can produce extreme colors. Surfactants, fungi can break down diapers. So there's a lot of awareness racing with the award as a platform.

Karl Yeah. That's amazing. some people still see fungi as a niche or fringe. How do you [00:18:00] make the case to corporations, investors, and even public institutions that fungi deserve to be considered a core technology, not just a green novelty.

Susanne Yeah. When people say, oh, fungi, that's nichey. if it's investors, I say, first of all, you know, fungi can address, all the environmental challenges, so let's start there. it can address, innovation for climate change, nature by diversity, loss, moving from a linear pet based system to circular one and pollution.

Susanne And then, System change across sectors. There are so many sectors that can use this, you know, construction industry, food, agriculture, various materials, energy. I mean, it's just so diverse in terms of sectors with definitely not a niche that some people refer to.

Susanne and for, you know, investors and corporates. this is system change, where we're moving to more bio-based system. As I [00:19:00] mentioned, the reference to McKinsey, 60% of input can come from biology, and in that shift, fungi is massively un tops and it's an incredible, there's so much potential.

Susanne We've only mapped. four to 10% of fungi globally. So the next, you know, materials or penicillin can come from these 96% else. And how, exciting is that,that the biggest innovations and vectors will most likely we have in front of us? So where bacteria is more exploited, fungi.

Susanne the Kingdom and Queen of a fungi is like,do you wanna go to the North Pole and be the first ever it's open for everybody and, um,so again, this is, we see back to, you know, the corporates, L'Oreal, they communicate that a target to go 95% buyer base by 2030. And there's a lot of companies move to much more facing of petrochemicals.

Susanne and I mentioned also General Mills and these companies from synthetic dye. So This [00:20:00] is where we're heading and we're heading to,bio economy. And there, there's such a massive on top potential of fungi as we're now discovering.

Erum so yeah, I mean, you have your finger on the pulse of fungi and here on the podcast we talk about all sorts of different microorganisms and plants and bacteria.

Erum What positions fungi as better at making certain things, because we know bacteria makes colors and surfactants and other things. We'd love to just hear your thoughts on some advantages of fungi.

Susanne we've talked about this, that it's important to, we need everybody. We need bacteria, we need plants, or we need, algae.

Susanne So fungi, friends, as we say. And they often, you know, you can mes them and,and they can collaborate and then you see magical things, but. Some advantages is, you know, the high capacity to, um, produce proteins. So the high titer, that's one, which gives a lot of, opportunities that bacteria, for example, can't do in the same way.

Susanne [00:21:00] so that's one.

Karl All right. That's great. Susan. when it comes to biomanufacturing, and rum and I have been talking a lot about this, it's like people think that stainless steel as a solution, that's not always feasible.

Karl A lot of proteins are very complicated. It increases the cost when it comes to downstream processing. And I think that finding these alternate ways to produce certain proteins or organisms makes a lot of sense. And using fungi as a, let's say, bioreactor, you know, seems like a natural Yeah. If you had unlimited resources and influence, what's the one Moonshot fungal innovation you'd love to see supported through the future is Fungi Awards. And why?

Susanne So I'm quite, imaginary myself. I often ask the question, we had a workshop on this, you know, if you could save the world, what would you make?

Susanne if you could save the world with fungi, what would you make? and I have a thing for, giving fungus roll in the soil, being so connected, sending nutrients and around 60% of [00:22:00] biodiversity is in the soil, and it's, you know, it's a tough time for the microorganisms in the soil. and it's going downhill, but we, don't always know how the status is, in the soil.

Susanne So I would love to see, fungus, a biosensor in the soil to report back to humans about, the quality and the perspective of the,microbes and the biodiversity in the soil. that's one. it will not, you know, make it or break it for prosperous humanity for us all,

Susanne So much comes from the soil.our foods, yes, we can also produce it in, vertical farms, but, we need to understand, the state of our soil better. And instead of implementing artificial technology, you know, we can collaborate with fungi, biosensors. So that's one, one innovation. it's not a moonshot, but, it's one innovation I would love to see.

Susanne But it's cool when I run this experiment, this workshop with grownups and ask them, [00:23:00] so what would you make with fungi if you could? It's so cool to have these people in their forties and fifties like, you know what? I want to make it toilets out of fungi that eats the shit

Susanne that's interesting. Or a plane or it's just, That's also mission of the futures fungi. ticking or sparking people's imagination of, you know, what would you make with fungi? Because as we also saw from the first award, visible, incredibly novel founder Lena and company, she makes a binder for asphalt production from fungi replacing petrochemical based Oh,

Karl wow.

Susanne Specimen as. Which is so novel and the asphalt industry would never think you know what? We need to look at fungi as a binder. Nobody ever thought about that. She was jogging and then she was like, look down and yeah, maybe she, we could use fungi as a binder. So it really shows that [00:24:00] there's room for so much more new innovations we have never seen before.

Erum Oh wow. That just blew my mind. There's yes, lots of creativity coming from people. You're seeing it. Um, I do have just one follow up thought or a question. I don't know where this is gonna go, but, you know, you mentioned that, you know, your moonshot would really be looking at mycelium and, how it could be used for soil remediation.

Erum And yes, there's, um, toxins in soil, but there's also a lot of barren land, Land that has been, over harvested and then they just don't have any microbes. And then this idea of, nutrient communication. I remember seeing like a documentary, it's probably the a Fungi documentary, the one with Paul Stats on Netflix.

Erum It was talking about how mycelium is a network and it's like the internet of the underground, and it's talking to the trees and it's like trees can communicate with each other and then bacterias, you know, can, participate in this too. And I feel like there's a lot to be discovered you know, this idea of nutrient communication.[00:25:00]

Erum It's just incredible because, you know, there's another, I forget what episode we're talking, there's this, XPRIZE for. I don't know if it's released yet, but Paul Diamandis was talking about it on animal communication and to be able to understand what, you know, whales and different animals are saying, and like, how do we interpret what other animals are saying?

Erum And when we're able to communicate with other animals and understand that, you know, they are conscious beings, I hope that changes the game. Otherwise we just all accept that we're like. Horrible people, that just, horrible species that just kills for nutrients, even though there's so many greater alternatives.

Susanne I love that you bring that up. we have experts in the board actually, and I visited, visioneering some weeks ago and we talked about this price and for me that was just, wow, it's so spot on because I talked with. Evan about. We look so much forward to being able to speak with fungi. I'm sure we will, and AI will help us.

Susanne e, Evan [00:26:00] and I in eco think so. and yes, it will, you know, change our relationship with nature. and that's also the goal behind, The future is fungi that we move to a nature-based system where we're in balance with nature and where we're respectfully interacting. That's why I talk about collaborating with fungi, not exploitation, this new frontier.

Susanne But to your question, yes. speaking with animals and fungi and you know, there's, um.Scientist called Andy Adamski, he researched that fungi has a language of 50 words. So their signals are interpreted as 50 words. I mean, it's so fascinating. So this kingdom we can't really understand how intelligent it is and how it has such a central, as you said, erum, central role in

Susanne interacting with plants, and other microbes and, you know, weaving resources. so I really look forward to [00:27:00] humans understanding, more about, this kingdom and also interacting with a living world.

Karl that's great. Yeah. we are gonna move into the part of the podcast where we ask some quick fire questions.

Karl I'll ask the first one and then new room, we'll pick it up afterwards. you can answer as long as you'd like, but what's, one misconception about fungi that you'd love to erase right now?

Erum I would say that. It's dangerous. It can be, but it can also be very nice. I like everything Everything's good and bad.

Erum Sugar can be good. Sugar can be bad.

Erum What's the one quality you saw in this year's award winners that made you think, yep, this is the future of fungi?

Susanne I have to say so many show such high degree of innovation capacity.

Susanne So for thus, it's important to say that yes, we have three top startups, but this is about all of them, right? We need all of them if we're to move in more regenerative direction. So the capacity of novelty, [00:28:00] novelty and innovation, it was incredible.

Karl Amazing. What's one fungal superpower that you wish everyone knew about?

Susanne Yeah, I would say that it's a highly intelligent system without the center, without the core, right? And we are not used to,you know, humans have a brain. But, this system is, you know, where is it coming from? How is it operating? highly int intelligence. No, no core, no center.

Karl That's amazing.

Erum Yes. That makes me think of our episode with Michael Levin in a decentralized intelligence system like octopus. You know, like octopus, they don't have a central brain. they're all decentralized. Their arms think for themselves. It's like,what? Yeah. What's going on here? Yeah.

Erum It's incredible. All right. Well, I wanna say, first of all, thank you, Suzanne, for. All the work that you put in, all the partners you brought together for the future is Fungi Award and your platform. You also have a podcast called The Future is Fungi Podcast. So easy to remember. so I recommend people listen to that as well.

Erum And next up we're gonna have the winner of the future is [00:29:00] Fungi, and then we'll have the runner up. So we'll deep dive into those companies and why you picked them. So thank you so much for coming on the Gring podcast and

Susanne thank you for your great work.

Karl Thank you, Suzanne.

Erum Amazing.

Erum Great conversation with Suzanne Renson. And now here's our episode with Ricky Casini of michroma. Ricky was recognized by Forbes as a 30, under 30, and MIT's innovators under 35 for Latin America. And

Erum He got recognized for redefining how ingredients are created, and this is our world of biotech and bio industrials. So Ricky is a former strategy consultant and professor of operations and logistics. So he doesn't come from additional biotech background, but he has all of the knowledge and insight into using fungi to make colors and food dyes with biology.

Erum So let's let Ricky take it away. 2.RICKY

[00:30:00] Hey listeners, before we dive in, here are four quick bio terms that Ricky uses that are worth having in your back pocket. First fungal chassis. That's the fungus they're using as the production host. The organism they build on to make pigment at scale. Second is titer. This is how much product you get out of a fermentation batch. Basically, a quick measure of yield. Third is pip proteins. These are membrane helper proteins, little gatekeepers that control what moves in and outta the cells and can affect how well the organism grows and produces. And lastly, precision fermentation think brewing with a target growing microbes to make one specific ingredient like a natural color, consistently and at scale. All right. Now that you have the tools, let's get back to this interview, shall we?

Karl Ricky Casini of michroma, we are so thrilled to have you today on the Special Grow Everything [00:31:00] podcast

Ricky episode. Thank you so much for having me. it's a real honor for me.

Karl Yeah. We've been wanting to get you on for a while. I know you've been extremely busy. We have a lot of friends in common. Francisco Bucca introduced us recently.

Karl I know that you both have Argentina in common, and I think you maybe know that, like I ended up moderating a panel at the, Argentinian Council here in New York City and, just have been a big fan of what, michroma has been doing, in the food and color space. So let's talk about, get some background in terms of your relationship with fungi.

Karl What sparked the moment when you realized fungi could be more than mushrooms on a plate, but could be a foundation for a global regenerative movement?

Ricky we started in 2019, so a while ago, at the beginning I didn't understand much about biotech. my background is some business, but I saw that, there was a huge contradiction in the food industry.

Ricky [00:32:00] consumers, wanted natural ingredients. But naturally ingredients weren't performing, the way they should in order to solve, the issues that food companies are having. so we saw an opportunity there, an opportunity where fungi, could solve, two problems, with only one solution. replacing synthetic dyes that are very cheap, consistent, extremely stable.

Ricky but still they are petroleum base, right? Plant-based pigments or insect based pigments that are the natural ones that we are using. They break under heat or pH and they come with major, supply chain challenges. so we saw that gap. we saw a gap where the world needed, natural colorants with the industrial functionality, and we could provide them using our, biotech platform based on fungi.

Ricky Solving that need. making it scalable, producing a product that people want, in a very cost efficient and sustainable way.

Erum [00:33:00] Amazing, amazing. I mean,like Carl said, we are so excited to have you on because. We have been looking at this space of CPG products, especially in food. I loved how you said that there's a huge contradiction happening in food.

Erum That's something I wrote down here because you're right. food's supposed to be making us healthy. food is medicine, yet we're we. Eating petrochemicals. why are we doing that? and then, you know, obviously formulating to make it taste delicious and addictive is also very Contradictory. But colors that have been a topic of conversation, especially here in the United States recently has been the topic of red dye 40. And your first product is red plus, which is more than a natural dye. So there's. It's pH and heat staples you mentioned those were challenges with the plant and insect based dyes.

Erum and it's built for real industrial food application. So what were your biggest hurdles in getting from promising fungal strain to an industry ready bio [00:34:00] pigment?

Ricky great question, erum. so. The journey from a beautiful pigment on a plate, or in nature to a reliable food ingredients. it's very long.

Ricky And there are major hurdles. and I can mention a few, engineering the right fungal chassis. Not easy. fungi can produce amazing molecules, but not at an industrial level or not naturally at industrial levels. So we had to design our own chassis that could produce the target pigment in a very efficient way, cleanly and consistently.

Ricky and then, it is time to scale it up, right? a achieving real industrial scalability and stability. It's very important. most natural reds, fail under heat or acidic conditions, so selecting the right molecules is also important. And then, making the fungi produce those molecules that you are looking for that will be used, for extrusion processes, pasteurization and [00:35:00] complex pH environments that is required for the food industry.

Ricky And as I mentioned, the scalability is also important. It's not the same. producing a pigment on a 250 milliliters, shake fla, as succeeding in 50,000 liter bioreactors. or industrial scale. So matching that performance at scale with the titer, purity, color, behavior shade that companies are looking for, was a major technical milestone that our team managed to achieve.

Ricky and then regulatory processes. because it's natural, it doesn't mean that we can eat it. providing novel molecules that have better pH thermal stability, for food applications means it's also needs to go through a regulatory process that is very long complex and we need to make sure that it's safe for consumption.

Ricky so that's the other big challenge that we have as, producers of a novel color.

Karl that's amazing, Ricky. I'm really curious [00:36:00] because, your scaling production in what you guys call fungal bio factories, what is that exactly and how do you, ensure that those fungal bio factories are sustainable in terms of feedstock, energy waste?

Karl how do you ensure that while still being competitive.

Ricky Great question, Carl. so when I started, I didn't know much about science. so I understood that we could have a product out of a fungi, and that product could be very scalable. it could be consistent batch to batch. So we started using this, term biofactory because we really believe that the fungi fermentation work can be a biofactory and we can produce.

Ricky in a similar way, synthetic diet are produced, but we can produce natural d which consumers are looking for, but essentially a fungal bio factory. It's a microbial production platform that we are actively engineering, chassis, fungus, whose metabolism [00:37:00] pathways, fermentation behavior. we are, shaping to produce these pigments, with precision, consistency and high yield.

Ricky and scaling this platform isn't about having just more tanks or more resources, because it wouldn't be efficient or cost competitive. It's about the deep technical work that we have to do as a team, and that is required to make biology and the process truly industrial, and high yield.

Ricky Those are, the main, uh, issues Then. It comes to a breakdown of different topics from rewriting the fungal metabolism for performance, then building a fermentation process that match, the biology. We need to develop the downstream process to purificate the target compound in this case, colors.

Ricky And then, as I mentioned before, making the process very scalable to. Industrial skills that are 50,000 liters, 100,000 liters or [00:38:00] all also half a million liters. and that's all on the technical side and what our team focuses every day and the job that I'm very proud of, that they are doing. And then it's not only done on the technical side, it's also the partnerships to develop, that industrial scale that we need.

Ricky Because as a startup, it's very hard to build the capacity. So for us, it's also important to develop the partnerships. that, we are using to accelerate and fine tune at scale the process. and we are very proud also of our partners that are helping us grow, go through that process.

Erum Oh yeah, you could have fooled me that you don't have a science background.

Erum I, this seems like you learned a lot over the years developing this company. It's incredible. And then you mentioned some partnerships. I mean, Can you talk about your partnerships and what does that look like in terms of how they work with you in Scaling Inc?

Erum I know the fine tuning, but can you give us some examples?

Ricky Yeah. for example, this year we announced a partnership with cj. CJ is a company from South Korea. [00:39:00] They have the larger fermentation capacity in the world, they are experts on scaling up biology. They have several products in the market.

Ricky they have a lot of capacity, a lot of, r and d and development. That we can leverage and basically put our process in there, bioreactors, work with them to fine tune the process and generate synergy to scale and bridge the, thousands of tons that the food industry needs.

Erum Yeah. That's incredible.

Erum Yeah, I would, love to know more about that, but, I can understand in South Korea, they have a very strong fermentation capacity. the food and beverage industry, at least in the United States, you know, it's a bit conservative when it comes to new innovation.

Erum And so I'm curious, how do you pitch fungi derived colorants to manufacturers or even regulatory bodies? We use synthetic dyes or plant-based pigments. How do you convince them that this is the opportunity and the innovation to go with.

Ricky Great question. And when we started, we led with performance and cost [00:40:00] effectiveness, because that's what moves the industry right now.

Ricky there is a big change in the U.S. with the phase out of synthetic dyes. so companies are, taking the lead on replacing them with natural options. Right now, we don't have to convince them anymore that synthetic colors are not good for us. but they still know that they are very stable, consistent, very cheap.

Ricky plant-based natural dyes are often fragile in terms of supply chain. So our pitch, it's quite straightforward. what we are bringing to the market is better performing natural dyes in a much more cost efficient and scalable way. More sustainable as well, which is a very nice, side effect.

Ricky And when manufacturers, see the stability profile of red plus, conversations, shift quickly, which is very nice when they see how our colorant performs. Provides a very nice shade of red that is very stable through [00:41:00] extrusion pasteruization, cooking, baking, and also they need to use a fraction of our color to generate the same effects on the metrics.

Ricky When we compare it to PIP proteins , it's 50 times more powerful. So that's very surprising for them. but we still need to achieve, not only the scale that they need. And that's why we are working with all these partners and make the process scalable, but also the regulatory approvals.

Ricky And, on that regulatory side, what we are trying to do is being very transparent. We are building our entire platform, with regulatory frameworks in mind. precision formation is already widely used, to produce enzymes, vitamins, dairy proteins. So regulators really understand this category. So what it matters is that, we have very well characterized strains, control fermentation processes, strong safety data.

Ricky And rigorous, documentation. Those are the key, things that, regulators are [00:42:00] looking for. And right now, F-D-A-H-H-S are not only eliminating or facing out synthetic types, but also accelerating the approval of novel colors, which is very exciting for us as well.

Karl That's amazing. that's today. So let's talk about what things might look like in five to 10 years.

Karl How do you see fungal bio factories, like the ones you guys have created? Fitting into a regenerative food supply chain, and or what needs to shift, to make that real? Is it culture, regulation, supply chains? what needs to change for this to be, so common that I can go to the store and just look at something that's read and know that the D comes from someone like you?

Ricky Yeah. Good question. karl. wasn't a fan of fungi or precision fermentation, when we started, but I saw the value that this platform can provide. I do believe that they will become core infrastructure of the next generation of ingredients, because [00:43:00] right now we are producing synthetic dyes, but synthetic dyes, ingredients, flavored fragrances that, we don't want to consume anymore.

Ricky But natural dyes are not producing in a very scalable way. And that gap can be filled with biotechnology and fungi and other microorganisms. so I believe in the next five to 10 years, microbes will, power not only colors, but also flavors, fragrances, nutraceuticals, proteins as well, entirely new molecules that we are not even discussing right now.

Ricky and that will also shift drastically the land that we need to use in order to produce natural pigments or natural flavors, the water use and the carbon footprint, because we can produce these ties or compounds anywhere in the world. so it's going to be, much better for the whole, world sustainability, but also in terms of supply chain, it's going to be much more reliable.

Ricky And, your other question was, how [00:44:00] to make it real. and we need, regulatory clarity. I think that's evolving and that's changing fast, especially in the US and the rest of the world is following, for example, Argentina, where im from all, it's also proposing a phase out and copying the same good measures that the US is taking.

Ricky So we believe that, globally we will unlock, more innovation and scale and better processes. then infrastructure also important. but there are a lot of players, around the world. CJ has nine plants, across all continents, and there are several other, fermentation partners that we could potentially use as an industry.

Ricky and, connecting to this, the partnerships are also important because it's not easy to scale up fast, and we want to create the biggest impact possible in the shortest time. So for us, it's not only important the partnerships on the production side, but also on the distribution side. And we know that we can reach a higher impact while working with others, in the industry that [00:45:00] have been working for centuries.

Ricky distribu ingredients.

Erum Yeah, wellsaid. this is something that we mentioned at the top of the episode or even before this call, that we've been looking at the space for quite some time. This, the world of consumer packaged goods and we've been speaking to certain brands and we, spoken with Pepsi and, FritoLay and then, just, I think this week they launched their new Simply Naked Doritos.

Erum Did you hear about that?

Ricky Yeah. Very exciting.

Erum Yes. Yeah, it's very exciting. I mean,it's,they say the Cheetos and Doritos are in the same flavor, just not the color. They just removed the color. But I'm like, all right. and I think crawl two, and I don't know if you but are, but we're Doritos connoisseur.

Erum So I wanna do a blind taste test between the, the colored Doritos and the naked ones. And, see if I can tell a difference, that remains to be seen, but it's, it's good. But then it's like. Color is so important because, we get attracted to the food. It's, it makes it more exciting.

Erum it adds to the flavor. I think just the, eyes and the nose and the [00:46:00] mouth, they all work together, right? Yeah. but I don't know if you've tried it or seen the Simply Naked Doritos.

Ricky we eat with our eyes. They are super important. and we relate the color to how nutritious a food is.

Ricky For me, it's going to be hard to get rid of dyes in general, but we can produce dyes that fit the needs of the industry that are more stable, that can be produced in a cost efficient way or a scalable way, and still provide that beautiful color that the consumers want in their products.

Ricky So I, I think there is a sweet spot where we can, solve that need, without getting rid of the colors.

Erum We definitely need colors and food, this eat with your eyes. It's a great thing. so one more question before we go into our fun quickfire portion is, so now that Micro has won the future of Fungi Startup Award, how do you see this platform helping you accelerate your vision?

Erum Whether it's credibility partnerships or more partnerships, more scaling or opportunities to open new [00:47:00] doors, within the ecosystem.

Ricky think it's all of them. it's credibility because in order to win the award, we went through a deep due diligence with experts in the fungal world, biotechnology world.

Ricky And that also provides a community for us, scientists that understand the potential of our technology and can unlock, or can help us unlock a challenge sheet that we might have, of course, visibility. and being part of this show is tense. To all the award. And so thank you so much and we will get in front of many people, which is something hard to get as a startup, and we really appreciate it.

Ricky And then, connectivity is also important. the fungal innovation ecosystem, it's expanding very fast. and this platform helps us to build the partnerships that we need to scale. so it's a little bit more than recognition, which is great, but it's also a catalyst to us, to. leverage it, and show our innovation to our work.

Karl That's amazing. So we're gonna go quickly into our quick fire questions. IAM and I will alternate [00:48:00] asking these questions. we always say keep your answer short, but it's okay if you go long. But to get started, what's one impossible pigment that you wanna grow next?

Ricky fluorescent food grade pigment.

Erum Wow.

Ricky Fluorescent. Amazing.

Erum Wow. Wow. That whew.

Karl Yeah, I

Erum mean, my mind just blown. Okay. I don't even know if the answer I asked the next question's been

Karl IAM has been dying for fluorescent hair dye.

Erum Yes. We'll bio luminescence. There's a little difference there, but yes. okay. Cool. All right. So the most unexpected industry that's shown interest in red plus besides the food and beverage industry.

Ricky Aqua field, very important for salmon and tilapia.

Erum Oh, that's right. Was it the Astaxanthin? Is that what's being used today? Yeah.

Karl that's an antioxidant that gets used to color the salmon flesh, I guess I can say. Yeah. That's amazing.

Ricky Especially when it's not grown in nature.

Erum Yeah, because the salmon is white. Otherwise, and I think, there we go. [00:49:00] Eat your eyes. Yeah. who would eat white salmon? Basically, tilapia.

Karl if I caught it and cut it up myself, I would eat it.haha. Okay. In one word, Ricky Fungi is equal to

Ricky future. The future is fungi

Erum well said. You wrap that up nicely with a bow on it. thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Even though this was a short conversation sound, clearly you're. Growing. There's gonna be more activities, more partnerships. We have so many questions to ask you, so as soon as we wrap this up, we're gonna keep talking offline because we're so excited for you.

Erum but thank you again for coming on the grow everything podcast and congratulations on the Future is Fungi Award.

Ricky Thank you so much, guys. It was a pleasure. I had a lot of fun, and I hope to do this soon, again.

Karl Absolutely.

Erum Okay. 3.BRITTA

Karl That was a great episode with Ricky. And we'd [00:50:00] love to introduce our next interview with Britta, who's the co-founder and CEO of Mycolever. She's pioneering the next generation of high performance bio compounds powered by fungal biology. Before she started Myle, she was a co-founder of Formo.

Karl Europe's leading precision fermentation food biotechs, where she built and led a world class research and development organization. She's a molecular biologist, biotech builder, and we're super excited to have her come on and talk about micro.

Karl Dr. Britta Winter. We're so happy to have you on the Grow Everything Podcast for this special episode.

Britta It's my pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Karl Tell our listeners about Mycolever. What is it that you make, and what was the moment where you realized that you could use fungi to replace petro animal or plant-derived ingredients without losing performance?

Britta Yeah. So in general, at micro level, we discover, [00:51:00] develop, and provide sustainable fungal bio compounds. So we are fascinated by fungal biodiversity and the capacity to produce so many different compounds, and that's what we'd want to tap into. we use fungi as a tool,to produce products that can replace petrochemicals and unsustainable plant-derived compounds in cosmetics.

Erum Amazing, amazing. There's so much unpack there because, you know, we've had people on this podcast talking about creating new molecules from bacterial cellulose, but not necessarily, mycelium or mushrooms as much. we did have, Paul Shapiro, better Miko, we actually did a replay of his episode where he's making myprotein.

Erum can you share with our audience and describe a little bit about what your discovery plus fermentation plus scale up looks like? How do you go from fungal genome or to the strain to a bio ingredient and that ends up in lotions or cosmetics as you just mentioned?

Britta on the one hand, we [00:52:00] develop a bioinformatics platform, which allows us to connect hunger genomes with, the products that they produce.

Britta And then potential applications. So we look at the entire fungal biodiversity, so genomes that have been sequenced and yeah, biomin in those genomes to identify new and interesting compounds and how they can be used to replace unsustainable ingredients. And then what we do is we grow these, fungi, very similar to brewing, I guess.

Britta and then extract the compounds that they produce. So the first compound that we've got is,an emulsifier. so it's a small molecule called the glycolipid. so it has, the ability to bring oil and water together and every cream, every lotion that we use has exactly these two components that need to be mixed.

Britta And so that's, what our fungus produces and that we can use then, to bring into, yeah, the cosmetics industry, but also into other industries because as emulsifiers are [00:53:00] widely used. In personal care, in home care, in food, agriculture, you name it.

Karl That's amazing.

Karl In the race for sustainability, companies can compromise on performance. Have you had to make any trade offs at Myco Liver, or if so, how do you design around them to keep both sustainability and quality?

Britta The good thing about working with fungi is that the compounds are inherently sustainable.

Britta Because we use, plant ingredients or sugars and oil to feed our organism. and then it just by itself produces these compounds or this, glycolipid. So we don't necessarily have to compromise when it comes to the production. doing fermentation. However, the standup protocols. For our compound.

Britta and to purify it would involve a lot of organic solvents. to get rid of anything else that the fungus might have produced during the fermentation process. So that's exactly what we looked at first. How can we reduce the amount of organic solvents that we need [00:54:00] without compromising on the quality of the product?

Britta So keeping the purity of the compound at the same level and the functionality the same as, if you were to use the standard protocols.

Karl so what does that mean from a downstream processing point of view? what does it take to go from growing the fungi to ending up with your, your final product if you're not having to use organic solvents to, clean them up, I guess is the way I would put it.

Britta we looked at, um, alternative. Methods to purify them. I don't wanna go too much into detail because it's still in the early stages. but yeah, we looked at where can we reduce the amount of solves that we use, where can we, simplify the purification processes with more natural applications.

Erum And so as a leader of a startup, of course you're managing product, making sure you get that, optimized better than, business as usual product out there. And, you know, you mentioned that this can, replace some other emulsifiers providing similar performance, and you're also managing the [00:55:00] business side.

Erum So I'm curious to know, like as you talk to industry, what kind of resistance or skepticism do you encounter and how do you handle that when you're saying, oh, this is an alternative, performs the same, but, it's different. So how do you handle those industry level conversations?

Britta that's an interesting question because Aaron, the first thing that we are always ask is what's the price? so we compete with petrochemical ingredients. scaled for decades now. Really cheap feed stock, unfortunately. and not priced on the impact that they have. I mean, that's a big challenge.

Britta However, we are in this lucky position that our emulsifier isn't a commodity chemical, especially when it goes into cosmetics products, because what we see is that it's structures very similar to ceramides. It's actually more than just one ingredient of many. It's the emulsifier and then it also has what we call active functionalities.

Erum Yes. It's not just drop in, it's what exists plus some performance. Mm-hmm. So not only is it going to replace, but it's going to enhance the [00:56:00] products that already exist out there in the world of cosmetics and personal care.

Erum Exactly.

Karl I think that's one of those things that people, don't necessarily understand about bio-based products that they do often have these multifunction, functionalities that can be leveraged. So you could actually decrease what's on a label based on the functionality of this product, or the ingredient.

Karl but beyond cosmetics and personal care, where do you see your compounds being used? Maybe in unexpected sector?

Britta Yeah. One interesting project that we have, together with a, manufacturer of frozen baked goods is to see whether we can apply this emulsifier to stabilize whipped cream.

Britta Sorry. That's an interesting application far outside the cosmetics industry.

Karl That's so fun.

Erum How did you like come up with that? Did someone approach you or did you put something out there? Were you at a conference? How did that idea arise? It's really interesting.

Britta Yeah. That [00:57:00] came through our network, was initiated by a university and they were bringing together partners in an open innovation program.

Britta So yeah. Super interesting project that we've got running there.

Karl before we get into like our, quickfire questions, I was hoping that Britta you could maybe give our listeners some background because you are a serial entrepreneur. what's your background and how do you end up starting this company?

Britta I'm a biologist by training. I did my PhD in Germany at the Max Plunk Institute in Mabo, and then moved to Australia to work at the Australian National University for many years as a postdoc. And throughout all these years, I worked with fungal microorganisms because I'm simply intrigued by, yeah, what they can do and the compounds that they produce and how they interact with their environment.

Britta then somehow I thought I would follow this academic path. So that was kind of like the, yeah, the route that I was foreseeing. and then in 2019, I diverted from this idea very sharply and became co-founder of a startup called Formal Bio. They produce, animal free [00:58:00] dairy protein. And I was so intrigued by this idea that I can use my very well, let's face it nerdy and say really academic skillset and apply it to something that is tangible and really has an impact.

Britta yeah. After leaving the company a few years, later, I decided now is the time to follow my passion for fungal microorganisms. And that's how the idea for Michael Leva was born. and now I have an amazing team. I have an amazing co-founder who took this crazy scientific idea to an actual viable business.

Britta And then together with our team, we make it work. Yeah.

Karl Amazing.

Erum yeah. Wonderful. And so you're, based in Germany and I, I assume in Europe that. This concept of using, you know, fungal microorganisms to make these materials is a bit more accepted. Have you talked to, companies in the United States, have you seen a difference between how American companies react to your products versus European companies?

Britta uh, I couldn't say that there's certain [00:59:00] detectable difference. I think it's more, US and Europe, are still a bit. Hesitant sometimes. whereas in Asia fermentation is so common, you find so many cosmetic products in Korea and Japan that contain ingredients that are based on fermentation.

Britta Mm-hmm. and I see this as a trend reaching Europe and the US in the next couple of years.

Erum Wow. Yeah. I mean, have you gone to Korea to examine all those different products out there? Because we are so curious.

Britta Not to Korea just yet. Definitely on my bucket list.

Erum Yes. Yeah, That's a wonderful, insight that you shared because we've been hearing about Korean beauty products.

Erum I've went to a few stores, try some out. and why does CREA have all the fun? Why don't we have the fun of using microorganisms and fermentation for skincare? Beauty here. So thanks for spreading the love. We really appreciate that. So Britta, you mentioned the emulsifier product, but you also have another product, which is a type of beauty oil. Can you describe that a little bit?

Britta Yes. That's a range of, [01:00:00] fermented. High value beauty oils, which we call Fermea. So in that case, we take, for example, argon oil or rosehip oil. We feed it to our fungus and it digests it and metabolizes it and makes it even better.

Britta So they are enhanced beauty oils with, antioxidative function, so a bit of anti-aging function there. they also contain them emulsifier. So an easier spreadable, better absorbed smell nicely. So yeah, even better than the unfermented oils.

Erum Wow, that's incredible. I could see a super product being created through all of your compounds.

Erum So amazing work.

Karl And you said that you guys have gone, to hundreds of liters scale. Is that correct?

Erum Hundreds is probably a bit exaggerating. Hundreds liter. Sorry, I've probably 100. 100. But we're preparing to move into the cubic meter scale.oh god, there's so many other questions I have, but we have a lot of fungal experts on this episode, but before we go, we have some quick fire questions that I wanna ask.

Erum I'm happy to kick 'em off, Carl. and [01:01:00] here we go. Okay. So If you could engineer fungi to solve one global problem, what would it be?

Britta I would, pick a fungus, which I would call a carbon alchemist. A fungus that can kind of drink CO2, have any kind of sidestream we give it and turns it into platform chemicals to replace replace petrochemicals.

Erum Wow. that was very beautifully put. I have to say. That was very beautifully put. I wanna, I'm very poetic.

Karl what's the biggest myth about fungal biotech that maybe you hear all the time?

Britta I think many consumers perceive fungi as a mushroom, a stem, and a head, like a button mushroom that we eat. there's so many out there. There's an estimated 5.1 million different fungus species. So yeah, there's an endless wealth of organisms.

Erum Yeah. Yeah. My whole thing is, oh, fungus. Are there spores? Are they, can they create mold? Can they take over my brain?

Erum Just like the, the show the Last of Us, they are some nasty ones and then become zombies. True.

Britta That's the [01:02:00] ones we're not interested in.

Britta or there might, no fungi from beer brewing, but there's so many out there. There's an estimated 5.1 million different fungus species. So yeah, there's an endless wealth of organisms.

Erum Yeah. Yeah. My whole thing is, oh, fungus. Are there spores? Are they, can they create mold? Can they take over my brain?

Erum It's a big world out there. People, fungi can do a lot of things, which we're talking about on this episode. okay, and so no, this is more close to home. Can you share a lab win you secretly celebrated this year?

Britta We don't celebrate secretly. We do it with pride right inside the gym. No, we were really excited when we, scaled our bioprocess protocols to several hundred liters. so that's a big milestone for a startup.

Erum Very big.

Karl Yeah. And I'm just kind of curious, what does winning this future fungi Award mean for you and the organization?

Britta well, the network, , spreading the word, spreading the love for fungi.

Erum Yes. Yes. It makes it all more [01:03:00] acceptable and you're not alone. There's a lot of people out there that we're going to be speaking with and wanna have you back on the pod as things develop so we can see how you're growing and you know, some more air time.

Erum 'cause these are our snippets, a little teaser. Companies, we really appreciate you having you on the Grow Everything podcast.

Britta Thank you so much.

Karl Thank you, Britta. I really appreciate it. 3. OUTRO

Erum Hey, this episode is sponsored by Messaging Lab. At Messaging Lab, we translate complex science and economics into compelling business narratives, and we have done so for the most successful biotech forward companies across pharma, agriculture, personal care and beauty materials, and the list goes on. We are here to make sure your ideas not only get heard, but resonate with your audience. So if it's time to amplify your company's voice. Elevate your business. Visit us@messaginglab.com. Let's.

Erum Wow, [01:04:00] Carl, that was a jam packed episode with three interviews in one. we're on the other side of it, and I cannot believe all the innovation in biology that we just talked about. What'd you think of these episodes?

Karl I feel like each one of 'em deserves to be its own episode.

Karl we've been fans of Suzanne for a long time. huge fans of Ricky Casini, and now I'm a huge fan of Britta as well. I didn't know her before she was a runner up to this. And I think overall, we've just scratched the surface of the power of fungi. we've had lots of conversations offline, but the ideas around this award.

Karl Just blew my mind. What did you think, IAM?

Erum Yeah, absolutely. I was I was happy that we finally had a chance to do this because I've met Suzanne at, like I mentioned at Bio Fab Fair, and then when she came to New York City and she had this amazing event at the Altru Institute, it was like a rooftop conversation about fungi and generative products during climate week.

Erum It was like the last [01:05:00] day of climate week. So it was a beautiful experience and. I just continue learning so much about how we can leverage fungi. And thanks to Suzanne. I mean, we had deep conversations before, where we talked about what exactly is fungi and how was it introduced to humans and our first experiences with them.

Erum You know, I can't help but think about shrooms. You know, everyone talks about that. Woo. You know, here we go. gives you psychedelic experience. Why, how does it do that? Why do fungi hold those properties for us to experience something like that. And then of course, all the other things from food to ingredients, to therapeutics to batteries.

Erum I was like, what, Suzanne, are you kidding me? Like,you can make batteries out of fungi. I was like, you could just make anything out of fungi. but now we have another platform here. Like you talk about platform technologies, fungi, bacteria, algae.

Erum Here we go, grow everything right. So I love that part of it. Suzanne was great.

Karl Yeah. And [01:06:00] we didn't even mention the fact that we did a replay with Paul Shapiro of Better Meat Co. And Paul is doing, you know, a mycelium based protein that he's been able to scale up production of. and there's huge interest from consumers in the health benefit of mushrooms.

Karl you know, particularly things like Rishi and Lions made. And, there's a whole list of these mushrooms that people are taking, for health benefits. So I am excited about the future is fungi and what we will see from the space. Because I think there's a lot of room for innovation we're just at the beginning of it.

Karl It's kind of crazy.

Erum Yeah. Yeah. And then, I mean, to have Ricky come on of myoma and He definitely talked about scale as a word that he used regularly to triple underscore the fact that this isn't just a science project, that this is an actual solution that can be used to replace petrochemical based dyes in our food.

Erum Call [01:07:00] up Ricky, call up micro chroma. If you are making foods using artificial dyes, stop that immediately and call Ricky. Well, and it's not

Karl just stop it immediately, it's being legislated out of existence. Yeah. So the United States is following Europe's lead in terms of a lot of these, you know, red dye in particular.

Karl A lot of these dyes that have neurological effects are being legislated out of foods. And so there's a huge opportunity for these people producing dyes with mycelium, like what Ricky is doing. And I think Ricky And,his company are way ahead of everybody else in terms of linking to scale, and I'm sure they have huge interest from all these companies that are looking for colors because, as you said on the pod, you know, you eat with your eyes first, then with their nose, and then it hits your mouth.

Karl So what it looks like and the color has to be pleasant. So huge opportunity for these mycelium. Color producers.

Erum Yeah. Yeah. I was actually at, a restaurant this past weekend [01:08:00] and they had tricolored tortilla chips. 'cause I got the queso. I'm a big fan of queso. Must be the Philly in me, you know, 'cause I love cheese steaks.

Erum and I love cheese whiz. but I don't eat that often 'cause it's not good for you. But anyway, the tricolor tortilla chips, they were like bright red and then blue. And I'm like, yeah, as a blue, I mean, I just assumed it was blue corn tortilla chips. But then when I saw the red ones, I'm like, there are not bright red corn out there, so this must be dyed.

Erum And it was like the same color red as, the Cheetos Hot Cheetos. I don't even know if they're called anymore. it was super red and like they were beautiful to look at. I wasn't like, like it was so fun to have those types of chips.

Erum So it was like, 'cause part of me is yeah, fine. Phase out the thighs. It's phase it out, but then what's going to replace it? I love the fact that Ricky was talking about glowing, fluorescent colors. Could you imagine? Yeah.

Erum what are those monster drinks or cooler when those came

Karl out?

Karl It shows up in [01:09:00] that in the bad Netflix series, biohacker, I think is what it was called. And there was a party they threw and they had the glowing beer, which, you know, I think is probably relatively easy to do. but very excited for what Ricky is doing. And of course, what Brit is doing too, because we know, and we hear it from our friends in the CPG industry, people are looking for bio surfactants, bio ulence, and so I think she's solving a huge problem.

Karl And again, many of these kinds of things are being legislated out and people are looking for labels that show clean ingredients. So it makes sense to have a biological replacement that comes from fungi or other means, but very excited for what Britta is doing. So I think this was a great episode.

Erum Yes, wonderful episode. It really did a great job of wrapping up our unofficial mycelium month, I guess you can say. you know, kicking off with our replay with Paul Shapiro and then Lauren Menard of gob, and then here we have the future is Fungi. [01:10:00] next is episode is gonna be with Aha, who is a founder of Cell Sense. And they make decorations, I don't wanna say decorations, I wanna say they make

Karl embellishments. They

Erum make embellishments for clothing using bacterial, UL, I believe,

Karl Yep, that's exactly right. Using

Erum bacterial cellulose. But perhaps you could use fungi. I don't know. I don't know. I mean, we've already recorded the episode with her, but it's something that we can all think about. Everything that touches our lives, how can it be made with different types of living things?

Erum And that's what we talk about here on Grow Everything. So thank you so much for listening. Stay tuned to our next episode, and please reach out to us. We love hearing from our listeners whether it's positive or negative, whether it's getting someone on the podcast or just asking a question about what's going on in the world of biology and how we can bring it to the people.

Erum So thank you so much. Yeah.

Karl Please, watch, listen, like, and subscribe to us on [01:11:00] YouTube. We're having a lot of success there, and we'd love to see more of you there. Thank you for listening. That's the episode.

Erum End scene.