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Evidence: High: 0 Medium: 0 Low: 0 No Data: 31

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readingnews 2026-02-23 10:29 UTC link

Not sure if they were the first, or whatever, but this really seems like a breakthrough technology / methodology. How many cardboard boxes do we use a day? The mind boggles.

Totally cool stuff.

8-prime 2026-02-23 10:42 UTC link

Looks really cool, though I don't know if the name is conducive to business. With just the URL I would not have clicked to see that the business is about.

nhinck3 2026-02-23 10:54 UTC link

Going on a little PR adventure today are we?

oniony 2026-02-23 11:43 UTC link

There are already companies that use packaging made from formed paper and sugarcane. I would be interested to see what mycelium packaging offers over this.

E.g. https://www.jishan-group.com/pulp-products.

orwin 2026-02-23 12:16 UTC link

My sister worked as an intern on mycelium as fertilizer. Basically, using cover crops create a small mycelium layer that helps plant grow and reduce fertilizer use (by fixing nitrogen probably). Her job was to find molecules that would make the mycelium, and only the mycelium, grow quicker.

That's a very interesting field to study, and it seems promising.

xattt 2026-02-23 12:45 UTC link

    > Mushroom® Packaging, grown from natural mushroom mycelium and agricultural by-products …

Does anyone know the agricultural byproducts are?

jcims 2026-02-23 12:57 UTC link

Just a side note. I started growing mushrooms a couple of years ago.

Very interesting and fulfilling hobby, they are incredibly interesting critters. Takes a little bit of dedication to get started but once you start seeing them fruit and making your own substrate it's quite inexpensive and a lot of fun. I have a feeling lots of folks in this community would really like it.

Basic starter package is a 'monotub', selection of spores, grain for spawning, substrate for fruiting and miscellaneous bits and bobs for handling, hydrating, maintaining temps and cultivating. North Spore and Midwest Grow Kits are both reputable and reliable suppliers.

Tons of resources on YouTube as you might expect. One of my favorites is Southwest Mushrooms - https://www.youtube.com/@SouthwestMushrooms

cachius 2026-02-23 13:20 UTC link

Nice, similar to https://www.traceless.eu who are pioneering biopolymers from grain residue, fitting into existing machines and workflows.

They already supplied famous Rock am Ring festival with friespickers last year!

kepano 2026-02-23 13:56 UTC link

There are a few companies in this space, notably Ecovative, who have been trying to make mycelium-based packaging for almost two decades.

The problem is that it takes around 7 days for each piece of packaging to "grow", and the finished part is heavy and not compressible so it adds significant cost in manufacturing, storage and transit. And these costs don't get any better with scale.

For those reasons, mycelium packaging hasn't seen much adoption beyond being used as a marketing story for high-priced small goods. Environmentally forward companies have tended towards paper-based solutions like molded fiber.

khat 2026-02-23 14:43 UTC link

Now if they can get a mushroom that eats plastic to use it as fuel to grow the mycelium that would be even better.

vld_chk 2026-02-23 15:35 UTC link

By which time should we expect US administration to post a video on X about “good classic” plastic bags and ban in the US any attempt to replace them? :)

MaxwellM 2026-02-23 15:40 UTC link

Very exciting!

ripharamberip 2026-02-23 15:58 UTC link

It sounds good but will this ever scale enough? Plastics are just so freaking cheap that anything that wants become a serious alternative (aside from being a marketing gimmick) needs to be very cheap. I honestly have my doubts but I'm excited that people are looking for alternatives

throw567643u8 2026-02-23 16:27 UTC link

Truly green governments should outlaw plastic production and favour PLA bioplastics and this sort of thing. There's enough plastic in the ocean already.

mikkupikku 2026-02-23 17:28 UTC link

How flammable are these? I've seen mycelium leather substitutes before but from what I understand if even a single spark lands on it, it's likely to start a smoldering fire that will consume the whole thing. Basically the perfect tinder.

__MatrixMan__ 2026-02-23 18:00 UTC link

This seems like a nice stepping stone towards something cool, but having the forming happen at a dedicated facility seems to miss the point. The promise of this technology is that instead of:

- make packaging

-> ship to where product is packed

-> ship to consumer

-> ship to recycler

you can:

- grow packaging where product is packed

-> ship to consumer

- consumer composts it in their garden

That is, the packaging should just make one trip instead of three. Hopefully they eventually figure out how to make kits so that shippers can just grow the packaging around the actual product. The hard part will be ensuring that the biomass used as feedstock (likely a waste product from some process nearby to where the product is packed) is actually something that people want in their garden. Doable, but maybe not the kind of thing markets can be trusted to do on their own.

TurkishPoptart 2026-02-23 18:35 UTC link

I love this. I'm assuming the company is looking for government subsidy to replace plastic in frequently disposed plastic packaging (like takeout containers or styrofoam packing)

woah 2026-02-23 18:55 UTC link

This looks like those rough cardboard inserts. Is it actually any better? Especially since they can use the lowest grade of recycled cardboard.

anthk 2026-02-23 21:11 UTC link

Between Mycellium and intelligent networks communicating nodes and 'learning' (and solving mazes' and brain's microtubules with fractal frequencies, biology looks like advanced computing literally very ahead for its time compared to what we the humans were trying to achieve barey half a century ago.