Mushroom-based meat alternative startup Fable Food raises $6.5M AUD, will launch in the US
Fable is preparing to launch in the United States by the end of this year. In Australia, its products are available at retailers like Woolworths, Coles and Harris Farm Markets, along with restaurants including Grill’d, which recently started serving its Meaty Mushroom Burger Pattie at 136 locations. Fable’s products are also available at restaurants in Singapore and the United Kingdom.
Fable’s first products include a substitute for pulled pork, braised beef and beef brisket (Fuller grew up in Texas eating slow-cooked meats and wanted to recreate the experience), along with a line of ready-made meals. The company uses shiitake mushrooms, which Fox explained are “very flavorful with their natural umami flavors, they are a slow-growing mushroom so they naturally have the fleshy fibers that give the meaty bite you typically get from animal proteins, and have the right chemical composition that when cooked allow us to taste flavors that are found in animal products.”
Other startups that use mushrooms as basis for meat alternatives include Meati and AtLast. Fox said a main difference is that those two startups ferment mycelium, or the root structure of fungi, instead of using mushrooms, which are the fruiting body of fungi.
