Dive Brief:
- Mycelium bacon maker MyForest Foods raised $15 million in a Series A-2 funding round. The round was led by MyForest’s parent company, mycelium materials maker Ecovative Design.
- MyForest also named Greg Shewchuk as its new CEO. Shewchuk, who was most recently CEO of Nestlé-owned food allergy prevention company SpoonfulONE, has also held senior positions at Campbell Soup, Mondelēz International, the former Cadbury Schweppes and Unilever. Co-founder and former CEO Eben Bayer will remain chairman of MyForest’s board, and is keeping his position as Ecovative CEO.
- The funding round, which is a reinvestment of money for the larger Ecovative Design, will help MyForest expand its retail footprint at a time that many mycelium-based products are launching to consumers.
Dive Insight:
MyForest Foods has been preparing to make a splash in the bacon alternative category for the last several years. With this new funding, Shewchuk as the CEO, and the ramping up of its 78,000-square-foot Swersey Silos facility — which the company says is the world’s largest mycelium farm of its kind — MyForest is getting into a position for sizable new growth.
Bayer, who started both MyForest and Ecovative with co-founder Gavin McIntyre based on research both did as students at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, said in a statement that now is the right time to bring an experienced CPG leader to MyForest Foods. The founding team brought a passion for growing mycelium as a way to create a sustainable and healthy alternative to factory farming, he said. After creating a first product, using consumer research to pinpoint demand and setting the table for large-scale commercial production, Bayer said someone like Shewchuk can move the company forward.
“With this new funding and renewed commitment from our investors, my goal is to double down on our marketing and sales functions to take the MyForest Foods brand to the next level,” Shewchuk said in a release.
Someone with Shewchuk’s blend of experience can bring all of the right pieces of business knowledge to MyForest. In his time with SpoonfulONE, he worked to build a new product category: children’s food items to prevent allergies. At Campbell Soup, he led the U.S. retail business and adapted products to new trends. And at Mead Johnson Nutrition, he was the company’s chief marketing officer.
The company’s mycelium MyBacon has been slowly rolling out to stores and restaurants in New York and Massachusetts during the last two years. It’s currently available in more than 100 retail locations across the Northeast, including several Fairway Market and Gourmet Garage stores in Manhattan.
MyForest uses a unique method called AirMycelium to grow its product. The growth system, which is in place at Swersey Silos, will be able to produce nearly 3 million pounds of mycelium annually. At the end of last year, Bayer predicted the high tech mycelium farm will support about $20 million in annual sales by mid-2024. The company also has a mycelium growing partnership with Whitecrest Muchrooms, and MyForest said it is working to launch a second farm in Canada with the mushroom grower.
While MyForest is currently concentrating on its MyBacon analog, it has experimented with a variety of mycelium-based products. Earlier this year, the company announced its next product would be MyJerky, a mycelium jerky, launching later in 2023.
