From Axios:
"Alternative meat startup MyForest Foods yesterday unveiled what it calls the world's largest aerial mycelium farm, a high-tech facility meant to crank up production of its mushroom-based imitation bacon, one of many products making it easier for meat lovers to give up the real thing … MyForest Foods' new facility, called the Swersey Silos, is located in Green Island, N.Y., a short drive up the Hudson River from Albany."
According to the story, "The Swersey Silos are expected to annually produce nearly three million pounds of mycelium - the root-like fungal structure from which mushrooms grow - for making the company's MyBacon pork alternative. A company rep said that would be enough for about one million pounds of MyBacon per year.
Company co-founder/CEO Eben Bayer explains the process to Axios: "We basically build these cyborg buildings that replicate the environment you find in a forest. And we sort of trick the mushroom to form these, basically, sheets of mushroom flesh. So rather than forming a mushroom, we get a 50-foot-long, four-foot-wide, two inches thick slab of mushroom meat.
"They've got this umami flavor, which sort of mimics flesh. And all we do is slice it off, slice it into bacon strips, salt it, smoke it, put a little coconut fat on it."
The story notes that "MyBacon, which was first available at an Albany grocery co-op, is now coming to two Massachusetts stores as the company scales up production and the broader alt-meat wars rage on."
