Magical Mushroom – Europe's first industrial-scale mycelium packaging producer

[jcims]

Just a side note. I started growing mushrooms a couple of years ago.

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

[SebaSeba]

A thing I've been wondering, I might be completely lost in thinking about this, but do you know: If you grow mushrooms at home is there a risk that it spreads as kind of fungi to the building, furniture etc.?

[holly01]

+1

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.

[jcims]

Couple of pics of lions mane and pink oyster that I had sitting around - https://imgur.com/a/ubI3eWt

[Nifty3929]

How much trouble is it? I found with gardening that it was fun for a while, but not fun enough for me to sustain itself as a hobby for it's own sake. And the time investment was not worth the crop.

I'd love to grow mushrooms if, once you get past initial learning, it's very low-effort.

[idontwantthis]

Is there any risk of wild, potentially dangerous, mushrooms colonizing your garden?

[convolvatron]

what do you use as a low-cost substrate? I think this would be something I'd be into, but the idea of buying 5lb bags to be delivered by UPS really kind of takes the magic out of it.

[eweise]

they grow in my yard without any effort.

[kepano]

There are a few companies in this space, notably Ecovative, who have been trying to make mycelium-based packaging for almost two decades.

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.

[Tepix]

Heavy?

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.

Source: https://dirobots.com/en/mycelium-strength/

[Reason077]

Biodegradable foam packaging, as well has food containers, disposable cutlery, etc, has also been made from corn starch for decades.

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?

[mrsvanwinkle]

Like real mold on fiber or

[orwin]

My sister worked as an intern on mycelium as fertilizer. Basically, using cover crops create a small mycelium layer that helps plant grow and reduce fertilizer use (by fixing nitrogen probably). Her job was to find molecules that would make the mycelium, and only the mycelium, grow quicker.

That's a very interesting field to study, and it seems promising.

[fsniper]

Reading the first sentence have me a lot of " Last of us" vibes. I hope she's doing ok :)

[8-prime]

Looks really cool, though I don't know if the name is conducive to business. With just the URL I would not have clicked to see that the business is about.

[Mordisquitos]

Ironically I only came to this HN post and clicked on the URL because of the name. At first I misunderstood the description and thought they were doing industrial-scale packaging of magical mushroom mycelium.

[pibaker]

I really hope they do not put the brand name on any actual products they produce. I do not want to be caught at the airport with a container in my suitcase proudly labeled Magical Mushroom (TM).

[vages]

Any PR is good PR, I guess?

[Pine_Mushroom]

Years ago I ran an ecommerce site for gourmet and medicinal mushrooms. We certainly had nothing to do with illegal mushrooms, but I liberally sprinkled the word 'magic' where ever possible. Also the words 'Ann+Arbor'... It seemed to drive some traffic.

[oniony]

There are already companies that use packaging made from formed paper and sugarcane. I would be interested to see what mycelium packaging offers over this.

E.g. https://www.jishan-group.com/pulp-products.

[cogman10]

In the old days, wood shaving and even popcorn were the packing material of choice.

The reason styrofoam is used is because it's cheaper (main) and it doesn't decompose when wet.

[elil17]

I believe the mushroom packaging is more like a foam, so it may be able to better protect products. Additionally, it may have a more "premium" feeling/appearance vs. pulp packaging.

[cachius]

Nice, similar to https://www.traceless.eu who are pioneering biopolymers from grain residue, fitting into existing machines and workflows.

They already supplied famous Rock am Ring festival with friespickers last year!

[readingnews]

Not sure if they were the first, or whatever, but this really seems like a breakthrough technology / methodology. How many cardboard boxes do we use a day? The mind boggles.

Totally cool stuff.

[adzm]

This seems more like a replacement for Styrofoam rather than cardboard boxes, though it could certainly be used in places we already use cardboard inserts. But probably still need a cardboard box on the outside. Thankfully we can grow those too!!

[elil17]

I don't think this is better for the environment than cardboard (if anything it is probably worse as a direct replacement for cardboard because cardboard already has a robust recycling supplychain). Rather, it is a replacement for plastic foam.

[rithdmc]

Dell have been using mycelium packaging for a while now - 2014 maybe? created in the US. Very interested to see this space go.

[zdragnar]

https://magicalmushroom.com/mushroom-packaging

Under Features, it lists polystyrene products as what it replaces, not cardboard.

[Tarq0n]

Cardboard is mostly renewable, it's the applications where we combine it with plastic where alternatives are needed.

[ekjhgkejhgk]

This isn't different from cardboard. This is made from mushrooms, cardboard is made from trees. The real problem is plastics.

[xattt]

    > Mushroom® Packaging, grown from natural mushroom mycelium and agricultural by-products …

Does anyone know the agricultural byproducts are?

[matsemann]

How is Mushroom something you can put (r) after?

[zukzuk]

Some mushrooms, like many oyster species, are saprotrophs and will grow on just about any waste organic material with enough cellulose.

[Mistletoe]

It says it is the woody core of hemp.

[Bayart]

Certainly dung. A common substrate for growing mushroom is a straw or shredded wood depending on the species plus manure.

[throw567643u8]

Truly green governments should outlaw plastic production and favour PLA bioplastics and this sort of thing. There's enough plastic in the ocean already.

[anthk]

Between Mycellium and intelligent networks communicating nodes and 'learning' (and solving mazes' and brain's microtubules with fractal frequencies, biology looks like advanced computing literally very ahead for its time compared to what we the humans were trying to achieve barey half a century ago.

[mikkupikku]

How flammable are these? I've seen mycelium leather substitutes before but from what I understand if even a single spark lands on it, it's likely to start a smoldering fire that will consume the whole thing. Basically the perfect tinder.

[Barbing]

What’s a Class A Fire Rating?

https://mushroompackaging.com/pages/technical-data

[TurkishPoptart]

I love this. I'm assuming the company is looking for government subsidy to replace plastic in frequently disposed plastic packaging (like takeout containers or styrofoam packing)

[woah]

This looks like those rough cardboard inserts. Is it actually any better? Especially since they can use the lowest grade of recycled cardboard.

[Joel_Mckay]

Sounds like a great product, but a tough name in a business messaging context. The Customer Acquisition Cost for people that missed business culture fit rules can be extraordinarily high.

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

[nhinck3]

Going on a little PR adventure today are we?

[vintermann]

This site is run by venture capitalists, I think it's part of the package as long as they don't pretend otherwise.

[ripharamberip]

It sounds good but will this ever scale enough? Plastics are just so freaking cheap that anything that wants become a serious alternative (aside from being a marketing gimmick) needs to be very cheap. I honestly have my doubts but I'm excited that people are looking for alternatives

[__MatrixMan__]

This seems like a nice stepping stone towards something cool, but having the forming happen at a dedicated facility seems to miss the point. The promise of this technology is that instead of:

- 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.

[vld_chk]

By which time should we expect US administration to post a video on X about “good classic” plastic bags and ban in the US any attempt to replace them? :)

[lofaszvanitt]

Are these packagings edible?

[khat]

Now if they can get a mushroom that eats plastic to use it as fuel to grow the mycelium that would be even better.

[MaxwellM]

Very exciting!

[amelius]

Is it edible?

[fanatic2pope]

Maybe not by humans, but definitely by the various things living in your compost pile.

[intrasight]

I like the web site. Using on mobile. Not as bland as most. I normally don't like animation but this one is done nicely.

[vicentwu]

cool

[larodi]

how's this Europe's given factories (and all likeliness all else) is in UK?

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

[rithdmc]

> geographically, perhaps, not EU though

I figure that's why they said Europe's first industrial scale; not the EU's first industrial scale...

[ekjhgkejhgk]

> how's this Europe's given factories (and all likeliness all else) is in UK?

You know that a company can own factories in other countries, yes?

[rcxdude]

The UK is still in Europe, even if it's left the EU.

[schrijver]

Thanks for the links ! Good to have an overview of the current crop turns out there is a factory near me

[bromuro]

It’s written in the linked page:

“Europe's first industrial-scale mycelium packaging producer”.

[netdevphoenix]

EU <> Europe