Innovating Food Law With Mycelium: EU Regulations

Foods obtained through mycelium fermentation represent an alternative to animal proteins, and upcycling of food waste often relies on mycelium’s metabolic activities. Fungi have been traditionally part of the human diet in the form of fruiting bodies, and in some parts of the world, fungi’s use for fermentation is well-known and widespread. Recently, food innovators have focused on the unexplored opportunities offered by mycelium, the filamentous web growing underground that constitutes the vegetative part of fungi. Viable spores or mycelium of a fungal strain are injected into a substrate full of nutrients and, under appropriate conditions, they modify the substrate’s composition and/or turn it into fungal protein biomass. Fungal protein biomass can be then simply sliced and cooked as such, or mycelium-based proteins can be further processed into powders and extracts. These are only a few examples of the opportunities that mycelium innovations can bring to the food market. This contribution is concerned with how such market opportunities can be realised in the food sector, given the current regulatory framework applicable to products derived of mycelium in the EU. In the first part of the contribution, the current developments concerning mycelium-based food under the Novel Food Regulation will be discussed. In the second part, the contribution highlights some of the most controversial issues in labelling of mycelium-based food products.