FoA 415: Farming Mycelium with Eben Bayer of Ecovative

Future of Agriculture

Headstorm: https://headstorm.com/

AGPILOT: https://headstorm.com/agpilot/

Ecovative: https://www.ecovative.com/

MyForest Foods: https://myforestfoods.com/

I’ve been meaning to do an episode on mushroom farming and mushroom technology for a long long time. But the right story just never presented itself. Then I got connected with Ecovative and about the same time got in touch with the subject of next weeks’ interview and all of a sudden I have two fascinating stories of fungi! And these aren’t far-fetched companies: they are proving commercially that mushroom farming shouldn’t be kept in the dark when it comes to the future of agriculture. In fact, when you think about the vast diversity of fungi that exist in nature, it’s surprising to me that we haven't seen more done to commercialize them for food, fiber and other resources (relative to domesticated plants and animals). But there are reasons to believe that’s starting to change, and will likely be accelerated through advancements in biotechnology in my opinion.

So this is a great time to bring on Eben Bayer, co-founder and CEO of Ecovative, which he co-founded clear back in 2007. Ecovative is now the leading mycelium technology company in the world. He is also Co-founder of MyForest Foods, and is listed as an inventor on 64+ patents.

Eben grew up working on his family's farm in Vermont, where he began thinking of mycelium as a new category of material with myriad possibilities. He has since developed mycelium technology into the basis of sustainable innovations across industrial categories, including applications in construction, packaging, food, automotive, fashion and apparel.

We will of course focus on his work in food and specifically on the bacon product made from his mycelium.