Fungi Solutions is using mushrooms to turn winery waste into eco-packaging

It turns out that fungi love a good drop just as much as the next person. Australian startup Fungi Solutions has been experimenting with mushrooms to turn organic vineyard waste into packaging.

Ecological relationships are at the heart of the Fungi Solutions business model. Taking inspiration from mycelium, the branching root structure of fungi, the company fosters collaborative networks with its partners in an otherwise largely competitive business world. The greater good sit at the centre of its practices, which aims to use discarded sources to create a circular economy and grow revenue.

Amanda Morgan, co-founder of Fungi Solutions, says that the team identified the Australian agriculture industry as being a key target for them as it often lacks good options for composting organic waste.

And this is especially true for wine.

Mushrooms love wine about as much as I do

“The wine industry has all of these beautiful fermented stems and skins that are left over from production,” Morgan said.

“It’s not easy for them to compost it because it changes the pH of their soils. So the only option they really have is landfill or burning it, composting some of it down onto there their vines. But they’re left with quite a volume to deal with — it works out to be about 30% of the total harvest just it can’t be used.”

Instead,  Fungi Solutions brings these types of organic materials into its facilities for its mushrooms to feast on. And fortunately they not only love it, but bonded to the waste itself.

“Because of the bonding potential of the mycelium — the root network of mushrooms — they were able to produce moulded forms from this organic waste, which it turns out is a really ideal alternative to something like a polystyrene or single-use plastic,” Morgan said.

“So we’re looking at applications within those industries where they might require materials like that. So for example with the wineries, they need to protect their bottles during shipping. So we’re looking at ways to turn their waste into a revenue stream and support Australian agriculture and try to tackle some of the plastic challenges that we have at the moment.”

While it’s still in its early stages, Fungi Solutions has partnered with Victorian winery Minimum Wines, which has a focus on sustainability and regenerative agricultural practices.

“We started by taking in a portion of their waste harvest this year and our plan is to try and scale up to process the 40 tons of grape marc they produce through their venue.”

And hopefully this is just the beginning. Despite only being in operation for a couple of years, Fungi Solutions has already been immensely popular. In fact, it has already reached capacity for its pilot program for the year.

According to Morgan, this is an indicator of circular models and the business community at large moving towards regenerative and eco-friendly material.

This is certainly something I have noticed in the consumer technology sector. Over the last two years, major global companies like Apple, HMD, Samsung and Sony have been sending out some of their products in environmentally friendly packaging rather than plastic.

Hungry mushrooms will even eat cigarette butts for the greater good

Part of Fungi Solutions’ research and development program is looking at a wide range of waste that can be recycled and hopefully used to create sustainable packing. This includes the likes of textiles, wood offcuts, rubber and more.

The company is even seeing if it can process more toxic waste like cigarette butts.

“We already know that the fungi are able to digest the cellulose acetate of the microplastic filter. They’re able to grow on that and consume it. We’re expecting that they are also able to digest a lot of the tobacco nicotine some of the other additives in there,” Morgan said.

“We know that they bioabsorb the heavy metals. So there’s a potential application where we might be able to harvest those”

The company has found that its cultures will “happily grow” on cigarette butts, and the team is currently undertaking toxicity testing in the lab. At the time of writing Fungi Solutions had collected 138,761 discarded cigarette butts.

Amanda Morgan will be a panelist at the Can Fungi Save the World panel at Purpose Conference in Sydney. The conference runs from October 19-20 and tickets can be purchased here.