Anuga 2025: Matr harnesses mycelium as binder in clean label alt-protein product
13 Oct 2025 | Matr
Danish start-up Matr is leveraging open solid-state fermentation to produce a plant-based protein product free of additives. The innovation uses five organic ingredients grown in Denmark — beets, oats, potatoes, lupins, and split peas — which serve as a substrate for the fungi to grow in and are part of the final product. Matr will open a new facility next year, increasing its capacity more than 30-fold.
This is Missy Green at Anuga 2025.
I'm here with Sunny, who is the commercial director at Matter.
So Sunny, tell us a little bit about what Matter is.
What is it made out of?
Matter is a small startup from Denmark who is utilizing all the newfound technology of solid state fermentation.
So we basically wanted to do like a.
Clean label way of doing a plant-based product using only fungi fermentation, so it ended up being an open solid state fermentation where we take five basic ingredients from Denmark, local and organic.
It's lupeins, it's peas, it's beets, potatoes, and oats.
We mix it up, we add a fungi spore, and then we let it grow for a while.
After the growth, we stop the growth process by pasteurizing, and then we pack the product and that's it.
So it's a pretty low processed product with local sourced ingredients and only the fermentation as the processing, but you end up having low waste because you have the substrate where the mycelium grows.
And you end up eating both the subtrite and the mycelium, binding the product together, creating a umami taste.
So all the flavor that develops, is that through the fermentation process.
All the flavor comes from this fermentation, so the mycelium feeding from the nutrients from the five basic ingredients.
We sneak a little bit of thyme and garlic in at the end process.
I think in the future we will leave it out, but for now it's about scaling factory size, so we We keep the ingredients constant, but it's the mycelium growth process that creates all the flavor in the product in general.
What kind of health profile does this ingredient have?
The health profile comes from the ingredients.
So these basic ingredients you have lupins, which is pretty rich in protein, so you end up with a protein content of 10%, but you also have a lot of Fibers from the other ingredients, so you also have fibers of 10% and very low fat in the product despite it feeling like you have a lot of fat because the mycelium keeps it moist while frying or keeps it together while cooking, so it feels like you have a fatty feeling in your mouth despite only having 3% from the ingredients.
So how did, how was this idea conceived?
I've never seen this before.
Am I celient that then the concept is coming from.
You have fungi fermentation in Asia, but you also have a growing environment of using fungi fermentation for both food, but also for building products or pavements or whatever.
So it's like the fungi can change structures of things, create structures, and both create a taste profile that's interesting and the texture.
So it sprung from.
From university, but also from university people knowing right away that taste and texture is king, so they brought in food people and they also know that they needed to scale it, so they brought in a few commercial people like me.
So it's a combination of things, but it sprung from university people thinking this can be utilized as a biosollution for food also, and trying to fiddle around with this with.
Products to start with and then finding a combination that's good and then it's about scaling this and not compromising on taste and texture because that is king in a food product.
So where is this product available today?
For now it's only available in Denmark and one place in Germany.
It's a handheld production still.
Creating data for building a factory, but the factory has been funded through the European Investment Bank, for one.
And while we are building a factory, so mid next year we will have scale enough to go into bigger markets.
Germany is a preferred market as one here.
We are building an organization, but we will also be able to distribute to other markets.
So we are scaling from 30 tons a year to 1000 tons a year from one day to the other.
So we need European markets to grow.
OK, and when is that factory scheduled to open?
Mid next year, 2 mid 26, the factory will open.
