Biotech company MycoWorks has successfully harvested over a thousand sheets of the company's luxury leather-alternative biomaterial Fine Mycelium
- This will allow the company to move to the next phase of its production ramp-up, loading over 10,000 trays to-date that will be harvested in the coming weeks.
- The company's first revenue-generating shipments have left its South Carolina facility several months ahead of schedule, and would soon be in the hands of clients and partners who have pre-reserved nearly two years’ worth of South Carolina's capacity.
- The sheets will first pass through the hands of partner tanneries across Europe, transforming Fine Mycelium into products including the company's own flagship material Reishi—a fully grown, customisable, and low-carbon biomaterial with the strength, handfeel, and durability of the world's finest natural leathers.
Improved sheet quality at scale: Fine Mycelium grown at MycoWorks South Carolina has already exceeded the quality standards of typical sheets grown at the company's California pilot plant due to the implementation of years of quality and scale-up learnings from the pilot.
- MycoWorks has developed a new savoir-faire–craft for making mycelium materials, and has also now successfully scaled it up by adding key elements of automation: a first for biomaterials.
- MycoWorks developed entirely new systems and equipment for its tray-based biomaterials process, adapting existing automation equipment from the consumer goods, automotive, food, pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries.
- MycoWorks has been able to reduce the labour input by a factor of fourteen while raising quality standards, delivering Fine Mycelium expertly, effectively and efficiently to partners.
- MycoWorks was formed at San Francisco, US in 2013 by Philip Ross and Sophia Wang to bring new mycelium-grown materials to the world.
Three years of R&D at pilot plant: After breaking ground on the facility in August 2022, MycoWorks commenced operations at the South Carolina plant in September 2022 and harvested its first sheets there in November.
- The proprietary process is operating as expected with quality achieved ahead of schedule, proving the company's proprietary tray-based process can be performed virtually anywhere.
- Until recently, only one sheet of Fine Mycelium could be harvested per tray; today, two sheets per tray are being harvested, increasing yield.
- MycoWorks will begin implementing this breakthrough in 100% of production by the end of 2024.
LCA of finished and tanned sheets: Reishi has a very low carbon footprint—between 2.7–5.8 kg/m2. Finished sheets are near-zero plastic and remain biodegradable.
- A less than 1%-by-weight finish, common to all leathers, can optionally be applied to the surface of sheets to protect from scratching and water damage.
What they said:
Our teams redesigned and scaled up our one-of-a-kind tray based process to achieve low cost and high quality production all while delivering Fine Mycelium™ to the market ahead of schedule, only 17 months after breaking ground. MycoWorks South Carolina is a remarkable achievement, now delivering the quality from craftsmanship via a scalable tray.
— Doug Hardesty
Chief Operating Officer
MycoWorks
MycoWorks South Carolina represents the future of design and manufacturing of soft goods. The potential of our technology is not to replicate existing materials, but to leapfrog them—delivering an entirely new category of products to the market made from Fine Mycelium. Uniquely differentiated from leather, our first product, Reishi, represents an entirely new class of materials that is engineerable, controllable, durable and sustainable.
— Matt Scullin
Chief Executive Officer
MycoWorks
