‘Mushroom packaging’ offers ‘ecological alternative’ to plastic, says Dutch biotech firm

A biotech company from the Netherlands is using the root structure of a mushroom, known as mycelium, to produce an “ecological alternative” to plastic. Grown.bio currently make 10,000 mushroom packaging products a week, with the material being lightweight and compostable, with “high insulation properties”. The company first began in 2016, growing lampshades inspired by material from the New York firm Ecovative.

Jan Berbee, co-founder of the business alongside Arthur Moree, said: “Packaging made of plastics is so omnipresent. We need to get an alternative for that, and mycelium packaging is an alternative.”