CEO and cofounder of Meati explains how they make their

For Tyler Huggins, CEO and cofounder of the animal-free protein company Meati, the key to creating sustainable food products is all around us—stored in thousands of years of natural history. 

“My philosophy and my approach has always been if you have a problem, look into nature,” Huggins says. “Get billions of years of evolution solving problems, and there’s probably a solution in nature already there. We just have to listen and learn.”

On this week’s Leaders in Innovation podcast, Huggins explains how his team has used that learning process to build a product that’s natural, scalable, and capable of making a difference in the climate crisis. At Meati, that started with a core mission: “We founded this company with the sole purpose of having a net positive impact on the world, and we mean that,” Huggins says. “When we built out the approach, we reverse engineered it and said, ‘Alright, if the goal is global impact, what does that actually mean? What are the first principles that are required in order to do so?’”

The company found that they would need to address consumer demand for a nutritious (yet equally delicious) faux meat product, while keeping production cost-effective. That’s where nature came in. Huggins identified the mycelium mushroom—a fungus that has been used by humans as a fermenting agent for thousands of years—as a source of protein that could meet those criteria. Unlike some plant-based alternatives, the rootlike structure of the mycelium mushroom has a texture that closely mimics meat. It’s also over 60% protein by weight and highly nutrient-dense. To reach a large customer base, and especially the vast majority of people who still incorporate animal meat in their diets, Huggins says it’s important for Meati products to look and taste familiar.

“I think you have to be careful on how many new things you introduce all at one time,” Huggins says. “If we really want to create change, you have to do things differently. The way we’re doing it now is not working. Our food production system is not sustainable, so we need new innovation, but how much innovation can you introduce at one time? I would argue not much.”

Perhaps most crucially, Huggins says that mycelium meat alternative production could ultimately reach “unmatched efficiency” compared to animal products. Meati is already producing millions of pounds annually from its ranch facility, and has expanded through partnerships with Sprouts Farmers Market, Whole Foods, Meijer, and Fresh Thyme. Huggins hopes that Meati’s efforts will pave the way for other companies to look at nature as a partner in combating the climate crisis.

“Fighting nature and having to do things that it doesn’t want to do is very difficult,” Huggins says. “So the easiest thing is to find parts of nature that have that intrinsic, inherent capabilities that we want, and leverage them to help solve our problems. That’s what we’ve been able to do that I think is different than the bulk of our agricultural and food system.”

Listen to the full conversation between Tyler Huggins and James Vincent on this week’s Leaders in Innovation podcast.

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