The first novel mycelium ingredient authorized for sale in the EU should hit the market in Q3, 2026, after the European Commission gave The Protein Brewery’s Fermotein mycoprotein its stamp of approval, six years after it submitted a novel foods dossier.
The decision follows a positive vote of the Standing Committee on Plants, Animals, Food and Feed in May and a positive scientific opinion published by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) in December.
Fermotein—which the EC says can be labeled as Rhizomucor pusillus mycelium—is approved for sale in Singapore and has self-GRAS status in the US, with regulatory dossiers advancing in the UK, Canada and Australia/New Zealand.
The Protein Brewery anticipates supplying 600 metric tons of Fermotein in 2027 from its demo-scale factory in Breda in the Netherlands to meet customer commitments in Europe, the US and Singapore, with production capacity increasing to >2,000 tons by 2029.
CEO Thijs Bosch said the move “sets a historical precedent in food technology. The EU system has now confirmed that a novel, whole-food mycelium ingredient fits in the existing Novel Food framework, a pathway the wider European food biotech sector has watched closely for years.”
GFI Europe: Regulators need to move more quickly
Lea Seyfarth, policy manager at nonprofit think tank the Good Food Institute Europe, welcomed the news but said the fact approval had taken six years “shows the need to ensure the regulatory framework keeps pace with European food innovation.”
She added: “The EU should prevent unnecessary future delays by boosting the European Food Safety Authority’s capacity and enabling regulators to provide extended scientific advice and detailed guidance to applicants before submission.”
Beyond alt meat…
Quorn—which grows a filamentous fungus called Fusarium venenatum in fermentation tanks to make meat alternatives—has been in a field of one for many years. However, a flurry of startups has recently emerged developing whole biomass products from various microbes, from Nature’s Fynd and Superbrewed Foods to Infinite Roots, Enifer, ENOUGH Foods, The Better Meat Co, MyForest Foods, MOA Foodtech, and Meati Foods.
Several other players such as Unibio and Calysta are also growing protein-rich ingredients with microbes using gas fermentation (rather than using sugars as feedstocks) with an initial focus on animal feed and petfood.
While most mycoprotein players are focused on alt meat, however, Fermotein is a protein-rich powder that can be used in a wide range of applications, The Protein Brewery CEO Thijs Bosch told AgFunderNews in a recent interview.
“We made a conscious choice to produce a powder instead of a wet mycoprotein. We can now easily export Fermotein to markets like the US and Singapore. It’s very neutral tasting and comprises about 50% complete protein, 35% healthy fibers and is full of vitamins and minerals so is mainly used as a nutritional ingredient.”
He added: “We’re using a different strain vs. other mycoprotein companies, and we can grow our mycoprotein largely under non-sterile conditions. This means our process is less capital intensive.”
