Lantmännen enters strategic investment with Mycorena for Sweden’s mycoprotein future – vegconomist
24 May 2022
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Fungi, fungi & mycelium
Lantmännen Cerealiathe Swedish agricultural giant, begins a collaboration with mycel-based protein food tech Mycorena. With the stated ambition to develop future mycoprotein foods for the Nordic market, the strategic investment will focus on reusing food waste to create fungal-based protein sources and ingredients.
“Their value chain from farm to fork, knowledge, networks and well-known brands are enormously valuable to us”
Lantmännen – Swedish for “farmers” – is a Swedish agricultural cooperative owned by over 19,000 Swedish farmers with operations in over 20 countries and an annual turnover of over 4.5 billion euros. The cooperative owns several food brands, such as AXA and Kungsörnen, and after developing prototypes together with Mycorena, is now turning to the growing alt-protein sector.
Mycorena – a Swedish company – is being developed mycelial protein from recycled food waste, hence the synergy with Lantmännen as a major producer of Swedish-grown raw materials in the food industry. Mycorena recently completed the largest Nordic Series A funding round for alt protein to date of EUR 24 million ($ 26.8 million), which is used to scale up and commercialize Promyc – the food technology’s proprietary alt protein product.
“Developing the way we produce and consume protein is fundamental for Mycorena. It will be extremely exciting to enter into a deeper collaboration with Lantmännen Cerealia. They represent everything we are looking for in a potential partner; their value chain from farm to fork, knowledge, networks and well-known brands are extremely valuable to us, ”says Ramkumar Nair, founder and CEO of Mycorena.