The problem is that it takes around 7 days for each piece of packaging to "grow", and the finished part is heavy and not compressible so it adds significant cost in manufacturing, storage and transit. And these costs don't get any better with scale.
For those reasons, mycelium packaging hasn't seen much adoption beyond being used as a marketing story for high-priced small goods. Environmentally forward companies have tended towards paper-based solutions like molded fiber.
Two packages made from mycelium can behave very differently because “mycelium composite” is a category, not a single recipe. Particle size, fibre content, and the ratio of substrate to mycelium all change density. Higher density generally brings higher compressive strength and better edge definition, but it also increases weight and can reduce the springy cushioning that protective packaging needs.
Or how about for the glasses box they show on the site in OP, or a plastic sleeve like Americans sell Oreo cookies in. Anybody have any guesses?
I’m curious what the advantage of mycelium packaging is over these existing materials. Presumably, it’s not cheaper to produce? Is it mainly that the mycelium degrades faster and can be recycled more easily in home composting, etc? Or is this about creating “hard” plastic-like packaging that resists crushing, water, etc?
That's a very interesting field to study, and it seems promising.
The reason styrofoam is used is because it's cheaper (main) and it doesn't decompose when wet.
Now they just use 99% compressed cellulose with a few antistatic additives.
> Mushroom® Packaging, grown from natural mushroom mycelium and agricultural by-products …
If it got litigated and I were the judge, I'd be concerned they were trying to abuse trademark to get patent-like protection. In the narrow packaging market, another mushroom packaging competitor would have trouble talking about its product without mentioning the word "mushroom" and drawing the ire of Mushroom™ lawyers.
Disclaimer: lawyer law blah blah
Totally cool stuff.
It seems rigid though, more akin to cardboard than soft styrofoam. I don't see anything about how dampening it is, but from the pictures I also assumed it was more like cardboard than styrofoam. Maybe the color is deceiving me though.
Under "Features" it explicitly calls out polystyrene as what it is meant to replace, and under "Performance" they claim to provide for clients "that demand the same technical performance as the polystyrene we replace"
Under Features, it lists polystyrene products as what it replaces, not cardboard.
They already supplied famous Rock am Ring festival with friespickers last year!
- make packaging
-> ship to where product is packed
-> ship to consumer
-> ship to recycler
you can:
- grow packaging where product is packed
-> ship to consumer
- consumer composts it in their garden
That is, the packaging should just make one trip instead of three. Hopefully they eventually figure out how to make kits so that shippers can just grow the packaging around the actual product. The hard part will be ensuring that the biomass used as feedstock (likely a waste product from some process nearby to where the product is packed) is actually something that people want in their garden. Doable, but maybe not the kind of thing markets can be trusted to do on their own.
Maybe some sort of additional corporate alias name with "Biocomposite" or "Sustainable" packaging related messaging. Also, one may want to contact Uline with a set of product sku that already fit generic shipping boxes for high-value items like wine bottles and laptop screens.
Have a great day =3
https://magicalmushroom.com/manufacturing/the-factories
geographically, perhaps, not EU though. and not relevant to EU where there are at least several similar companies such as
Grown.bio - Netherlands PermaFungi - Brussels (New 1,400 m² factory) RongoDesign - Romania Biomyc - Bulgaria
perhaps more. So this title is super misleading - not first, not Europe's, but perhaps UK's
I figure that's why they said Europe's first industrial scale; not the EU's first industrial scale...
You know that a company can own factories in other countries, yes?
Very interesting and fulfilling hobby, they are incredibly interesting critters. Takes a little bit of dedication to get started but once you start seeing them fruit and making your own substrate it's quite inexpensive and a lot of fun. I have a feeling lots of folks in this community would really like it.
Basic starter package is a 'monotub', selection of spores, grain for spawning, substrate for fruiting and miscellaneous bits and bobs for handling, hydrating, maintaining temps and cultivating. North Spore and Midwest Grow Kits are both reputable and reliable suppliers.
Tons of resources on YouTube as you might expect. One of my favorites is Southwest Mushrooms - https://www.youtube.com/@SouthwestMushrooms
I'd love to grow mushrooms if, once you get past initial learning, it's very low-effort.
That said, it's not completely risk free and I think it's important for folks who decide to get into the hobby at least take a moment to think about it. If you have someone in the household that has respiratory issues, I think it would be worthwhile ensuring that you have good containment to prevent spores from circulating the home (or do it elsewhere). This is particularly true if you decide to scale up (which is natural once you have some success, it truly is fun).
Also the growing environment is subject to infection from whatever environmental molds/fungus/etc are around, so reasonable precautions should be taken when handling/disposing. Once you get your procedures down this is less of an issue but still something to keep in mind.
Personally I didn't do anything but very basic precautions and never had an issue.
You can grow mushrooms at home, it is fun. The only risk is that the mushrooms with high spore production are not great to have in a closed residence, especially oyster mushrooms which produce very high spore loads. There are vendors who produce cultures of sporeless oyster which can be used to grow oyster mushrooms indoors.
Outdoors, at least in most temperate areas, you are limited to things like shitake on logs or winecaps. The latter are incredibly easy to grow, and very good taste wise, but they are temperamental and basically grow on their own schedule, infrequently.
I started a few months ago and it’s a great hobby. It’s like low maintenance gardening that you can do all indoors. It’s very satisfying to watch something grow. I think my only reoccurring cost is the coco coir I use as a substrate and the wheat berries, which are both very cheap.
What you learn is how to positively identify the mushrooms you intend to produce/eat. It doesn't take long. I've only had alien mushrooms show up once.
I tried growing a little wine cap bed once, and it hadn't gone well. Perhaps it was the chickens pecking at it, can't say. I do still get wine caps on occasion, but they have migrated to more far-flung parts of the yard.
Maybe it would cost 10 times as much as the wood chips themselves… small batch spore bakeoffs…
https://circulareconomy.europa.eu/platform/en/good-practices...