Food-production companies are a big target. BMC Ingredients, which collaborated with Perdue on a line of blended nuggets, markets a plant-based protein that can be mixed with meat to up its nutrition and flavor. BMC grows mycelium\u2014the root-like structures of fungi. It underpins popular meat alternatives like Quorn and also features alongside mushrooms in Joyn\u2019s 50\/Cut. Shapiro likens his factory to a brewery, but instead of yeast fermenting barley, a fungus called Neurospora crassa<\/em> digests starch to produce a protein with a dense network of fibers that makes for a meat-like chew. \u201cWe grow four hours before we get a harvest,\u201d Shapiro says. \u201cIt\u2019s among the most efficient ways to produce protein on Earth.\u201d<\/p>\n Joyn also sees its path forward outside the grocery store. Food eaten away from home accounts for more than half of what US consumers spend on grub, according to the USDA. Padraic Doherty, who joined Joyn from the meat distributor D\u2019Artagnan and holds the title of chief growth officer, says its main areas of focus are K\u201312 and college cafeterias and other major food service providers, like stadiums. These organizations, he says, often have sustainability goals and also are pressured to find both nutritious and affordable options. The 50\/Cut Joyn sells to cafeterias is between 5% and 15% cheaper than beef.\u00a0<\/p>\n But can cafeteria mushroom burgers prompt a larger cultural shift?\u00a0<\/p>\n The folks touting the idea of going halfway see it as a bridge. BMC\u2019s Shapiro thinks the movement toward meat-light eating reflects the reality of how these changes happen. Nectar\u2019s Cotto compares blended meat to a hybrid car. \u201cMoving people toward blended products [is] a way to drive demand for some of the fully plant-based ingredients that don\u2019t scale right now to bring the price down,\u201d she says. \u201cSo it\u2019s both a short- and a long-term approach.\u201d<\/p>\n Not everyone is so sure market forces will be enough, though. Nil Zacharias, a longtime entrepreneur in food sustainability who offers plant-based options to New York City delis through his company Plantega, isn\u2019t sold on the notion. \u201cToo many people in the space believe that as long as we create meat that is not from an animal but tastes like meat and costs the same, people will eat it,\u201d he says. \u201cI think the plant-based backlash to ultraprocessed foods shows you that\u2019s not necessarily how things are going to go.\u201d He believes blended meat\u2019s main impact will be on institutional dining, in places like schools and health-care facilities.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople in this space believe that as long as we create meat that is not from an animal but tastes like meat, people will eat it.\u201d<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n Nil Zacharias, founder and CEO, Plantega<\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Meat hybrids could, however, taste just familiar enough to open consumers\u2019 minds to alternatives. Some research has found that thinking about mock meats prompts people to reconsider the whole system. In the 2010s, Clemens Driessen, a cultural geographer who teaches at Wageningen University & Research in the Netherlands, worked on a project that asked people in pubs, supermarkets, and other public spaces what they thought of lab-grown meat. \u201cThere\u2019s a first response, which is \u2018Oh, that sounds horrible,\u2019\u201d Driessen says. Then people tended to reflect that the meat they consume is also heavily industrialized. \u201cA whole train of thought emerges out of proposing something very new,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n COURTESY OF 50\/50 FOODS<\/p>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n If the category succeeds, climate advocates will need to make peace with imperfection. A life-cycle analy\u00adsis Joyn commissioned on the 50\/Cut burger confirms that the product has half the greenhouse-gas footprint of a beef patty, which\u2014if you go by company claims\u2014means it has about five times the impact of a burger from Impossible or Beyond. Hedenus, the climate scientist, says that even if blended products don\u2019t reduce impact as much as plant-based ones, he\u2019s all for trying any solution that works. \u201cIt is very difficult to change how we eat, so I think most good suggestions should be explored,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the products are finding their way to more plates. They\u2019re in cafeterias, high-end grocery stores, and small burger chains. They\u2019re in the catalogues of major distributors like Sysco. The Both Burger has even been at Disneyland.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n #startups #hope #blended #food #cut #appetite #red #meat<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Food-production companies are a big target. BMC Ingredients, which collaborated with Perdue on a line…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24399,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[14803,14802,3845,6142,656,7859,853,7503],"class_list":["post-24398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stories","tag-appetite","tag-blended","tag-cut","tag-food","tag-hope","tag-meat","tag-red","tag-startups"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/news678.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/MUSH_FOODS_LIFESTYLE_014.jpg",1200,600,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/news678.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/MUSH_FOODS_LIFESTYLE_014-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/news678.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/MUSH_FOODS_LIFESTYLE_014-300x150.jpg",300,150,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/news678.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/MUSH_FOODS_LIFESTYLE_014-768x384.jpg",640,320,true],"large":["https:\/\/news678.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/MUSH_FOODS_LIFESTYLE_014-1024x512.jpg",640,320,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/news678.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/MUSH_FOODS_LIFESTYLE_014.jpg",1200,600,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/news678.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/MUSH_FOODS_LIFESTYLE_014.jpg",1200,600,false],"covernews-featured":["https:\/\/news678.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/MUSH_FOODS_LIFESTYLE_014-1024x512.jpg",1024,512,true],"covernews-medium":["https:\/\/news678.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/MUSH_FOODS_LIFESTYLE_014-540x340.jpg",540,340,true]},"author_info":{"display_name":"admin","author_link":"https:\/\/news678.top\/?author=1"},"category_info":"Stories<\/a>","tag_info":"Stories","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24398"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24398\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp.technologyreview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/both_burger4-Cropped.jpg\")