Team: Meati Foods | Origin: Colorado | Participation: NSF I-Corps Participant, 2016
Credit: Meati Foods
Meati Foods (formerly known as Emergy) makes environmentally sustainable protein as synthetic "meat" from fungi. Meati's products are textured, highly nutritious, and even cost competitive to animal meats. Meati's process is highly efficient and sustainable, using 1% of the land, water, and energy compared to traditional animal meats. At scale, the products achieve cost parity, allowing for wide market adoption.
"I-Corps has played an integral part of Meati Foods journey," said Justin Whiteley, Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer at Meati Foods. "The co-founders of Meati Foods originally took part in the NSF National I-Corps program in the fall of 2016. At the time, the company was called Emergy and the technology was driven toward making advanced electrochemical materials. The interviews from the first I-Corps (along with three subsequent I-Corps with different organizations) led Emergy to pivot into protein production and eventually a branded product."