In California, foodtech Optimized Foods has developed a caviar alternative using lab-grown meat techniques and its proprietary mycelium platform.
Dubbed MycoCarrier™, Optimized Foods’ process uses spherical mycelium to convert biomass into food products, according to vegconomist. In the case of its Cultivated Caviar, the company grows caviar in a lab using sturgeon cells and an edible mycelium scaffold.
The company hopes the caviar alternative will help reduce overfishing of sturgeon, which has pushed the species onto the endangered list.
Optimized Foods has also developed HYphat, a plant-based fat ingredient made from the MycoCarrier technology that can meet the specific requirements to replace a range of animal fats.