Meet the start-up replacing plastic with mycelia for ‘high performance’ alternative

Israel-based MadeRight is leveraging fungi fermentation technology to turn ‘waste into gold’. Its innovative material addresses the performance ‘trade-offs’ inherent in sustainable packaging, co-founder Rotem Cahanovitc tells FoodNavigator.

Combining the two – an awareness of the plastic pollution problem and fungi’s upcycling potential – informed the entrepreneur’s research into fungi-derived materials for food and beverage packaging.

We can use these organisms to create more sustainable materials, by taking what we now call waste – with low financial value – and turn it into gold.

MadeRight is using fungi as cell factories to produce high-value materials: the first product turns industrial organic waste into a recyclable plastic alternative.
Conventional plastic packaging is made from a “cocktail” of materials. These are largely made up of polymers, pigment and fillers in varying ratios. Functional additives are also included, depending on the food and beverage product in question, to protect against relevant elements such as oxygen or light.

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