A consortium led by Mycorena AB, Scandinavia’s mycoprotein pioneer, along with Swedish food manufacturer Berte Qvarn and Falkenberg Municipality, has been awarded a €1.7M grant from the European Commission’s LIFE Programme for creating circular mycoprotein. The project, LIFE RE:FOOD, is part of Mycorena’s ambitious goals for enabling food manufacturers to produce mycoprotein from their industry side streams, through an upcycling process technology (TECHMYC) developed by the company through years of research and development efforts. The project is additionally supported by leading food industry groups Polarbröd, Atria, and ICA.
”To better promote the application of mycoprotein and accelerate the implementation of circular economy in the EU, we envision to cooperate and build strong knowledge transfer relationships with our partners from the food industry. We believe this EU funding enables us to promote our TECHMYC platform technology, to be applied on a large scale at our partner’s industrial sites.” says Ramkumar Nair, founder, and CEO of Mycorena.
Mycorena’s industry partners are Sweden’s most trusted and traditional food companies with decades and even centuries of expertise in food manufacturing. Berte Qvarn is part of Sweden’s oldest family-owned food industry group and has pioneered the grain milling industry for more than 450 years. Polarbröd, another visionary family business, has perfected the industrial baking of traditional Northern Swedish bread for more than 100 years. Atria is one of the leading Northern European manufacturers of meat and various food products, and ICA is Sweden’s largest food retail store chain by far.
“Berte Qvarn is committed to sustainability for a long time, and participating in this project with the goal of increasing circular food production feels entirely right! Increasingly turning our side streams into mycoprotein-based food products is a success for sustainability.”, says Fredrik Nilsson, CEO of Berte Qvarn.
The three-year project with a total budget of more than €3M is initiated and promoted by Falkenberg Municipality, where Mycorena is currently building its production factory. Located in the Halland Region in Sweden, Falkenberg is home to several key actors in the food & beverages sector and is currently building an ecosystem for attracting sustainable and innovative food companies to the region.
”The EU LIFE financing is a fruitful result of our current efforts enabling real-world innovation to flourish in Falkenberg. Being a Silicon Valley of foodtech, we are here to help more companies succeed here in our dynamic ecosystem - with a target of beyond 1000 MSEK being invested here 2030.”, Jan Melkersson Head of Enterprise Unit in Falkenberg Municipality.
The largest non-dilutive funding in the history of Mycorena, the funds will be used to demonstrate the large-scale application of TECHMYC, the company’s flagship innovative manufacturing method for producing sustainable fungi-based protein using renewable feedstock.
“Being awarded the LIFE grant is a huge deal for Mycorena, and not only for the financial resources we can use in developing a next-generation solution for circular food production. More importantly, this stamp of approval from the European Commission is a powerful statement on the massive potential of our innovation. All our partners in the project have given us invaluable support for a long time, and this project marks the beginning of a very promising future together.” says Anton Johansson, project lead and CFO of Mycorena.
For more information about the project, please contact:
Anton Johansson, CFO – Mycorena and Project Manager – LIFE RE:FOOD
+46 762 41 26 73
anton@mycorena.com
