Mushroom protein company Meati Foods opens ‘mega’ facility; closes $22 million in new funding • businessroundups.org

Meati food closer to full production of its whole-food protein, made from the structural fibers of mushrooms, known as mycelium. The company announced Thursday the opening of its manufacturing facility, dubbed “Mega Ranch,” in Colorado.

The 100,000 square foot facility was funded in part by a $150 million Series C capital round raised last year and a brand new $22 million extension round. This will allow Meati to produce tens of millions of pounds annually by the end of 2023. Once fully ramped up, the facility will be capable of producing more than 45 million pounds of product.

Tyler Huggins, co-founder and CEO of Meati Foods, told businessroundups.org that the company was not actively seeking additional capital, but had decided to keep the Series C round open due to additional interest from investors.

“There was more interest than room in the $150 million round, so we kept it open,” he said. “We also wanted to bring in value-added people and put more fuel on the fire, which would allow us to move faster, open more doors and unlock more capacity.”

The use of mycelium is not only growing as an alternative source of protein, as fellow food tech companies Perfect Day, MyForest Foods and Fable Food, but also in clothing and leather. In recent years, many food tech companies have joined Meati Foods to move from the R&D phase to building facilities. For example, No Meat Factory announced new funding earlier this month to build a 200,000 square foot factory to scale up its alternative protein, while both Planetary and Prolific Machines raised capital in 2022 to build production facilities.

With a focus on providing products that are sustainable, nutritious and taste great, Mega Ranch enables Meati Foods to grow, harvest and process its mycelium and then produce its products under one roof. The company touts its own production capacity to grow a teaspoon of spores into the equivalent of hundreds of cow whole proteins in just a few days.

Already produced at the Mega Ranch, the Eat Meati product line currently includes four products, the Classic Cutlet, Crispy Cutlet, Classic Steak and Carne Asada Steak.

The products are sold through retail and food service partners, including Sprouts Farmers Market, Sweetgreen and Birdcall. It’s also doing small drops on products online that Huggins said are constantly selling out quickly. In addition, he plans to get Meati products in 7,000 doors by the end of the year.

The new round of capital was again led by Revolution Growth and also included Rockefeller Capital. Now the company’s total funding to date exceeds $250 million.

“There will be a seismic shift in how we eat in the coming years, and Meati’s state-of-the-art, scalable manufacturing capabilities combined with its focus on meeting consumer needs for clean, whole-food protein position the brand to lead,” said Fazeela Abdul Rashid, partner at Revolution Growth and member of the Board of Directors of Meati Foods, said in a written statement. “Tyler and the team have a vision for a new food category with pure ingredients and a taste that doesn’t compromise. We are excited to continue working with them to take it to the next level and bring Meati to more consumers in the US.”

When I spoke to Huggins in 2022, he mentioned the company’s goal of reaching $1 billion in sales by 2025. The company is already raking in tens of millions of dollars in revenue with plans to reach hundreds of millions of dollars by 2024.

With the new facility and financing, Meati is aligned to reach that sales rate. In addition to what he called the “core four” products, Huggins said the company’s technology can make other products all from one processing line.

Meanwhile, the company is also looking for a location for what Huggins dubbed “Giga Ranch,” which will become Meati’s flagship facility capable of producing hundreds of millions of pounds of its mycelium product annually.

Huggins said “2023 will be an important time” for the company in terms of manufacturing, building its brand and educating people about mushroom protein and its ability to provide more nutrition and be a net benefit to the global food system.

“There is no shortage of stuff and we are not short of demand,” he added. “Our pipeline is robust and everything we produce for the next year or more is already pre-sold. It is now about freeing up capacity to bring the product to market.”