PLMA 2025: Fungi Food taps mushrooms and sunflower protein for allergen-free vegan concepts
06 Jun 2025 | Fungi Food
Thomas Neuburger, CEO and founder of Fungi Food, talked to us about leveraging mushrooms’ umami taste and texture to create vegan concepts that mimic meat and appeal to both meat eaters and flexitarians. The protein in these products comes from sunflower protein, which Neuburger said is minimally processed and supports their clean label and allergy-friendly positioning.
This is food ingredients first at PLMA.
We're here with Thomas Neuberger, who is CEO and founder at Fungi Food.
Thanks for speaking with us today, Thomas.
What are you presenting at PLMA?
We are presenting at the PLMA our new private labor concept, Fungi Food.
Why did you choose mushrooms as your base instead of peas, soy, or microprotein?
We dedicated ourselves to the mushrooms.
We've been developing for more than 10 years.
We're searching for an alternative to meat, and we found out that mushrooms are the perfect texture for the meat lovers and the great miters.
That's why we decided to just use the fruit body from the mushroom.
And how does sunflower protein support your clean label and allergy friendly positioning?
Sunflower protein is a very important ingredient because it's very little processed, has a high and very wealthy nutrition content in it.
That's why we decided for the sunflower protein.
Now your products mimic meat texture without artificial methods.
How do you achieve that naturally?
That was a very, very long process in the development, and let's say there are some secrets we developed how to process the mushrooms right to keep the texture, the meaty texture alive.
And what kind of consumer is your mushroom-based range speaking to today with our mushroom-based products, fungi food, we want to reach the broad majority of the meat eaters and more.
Flexitarians all over Europe.
How do your production methods support sustainability and circular economy goals by using the mushrooms as main ingredients.
We can lower our footprint sustainably because the footprint of mushrooms is very low, the equivalent of about 1 kg COO compared to meat which has more than 20 kg CO equivalent.
What is next for fungi food, and are there any new formats, cuisines, or ingredients that you're working with?
We are searching for fungi food for different formulas.
We are searching for high protein, for high protein, and for free form version which will be preying on the shelves by the second half of this year.
Great, thanks for your time.
