Most people look at mushrooms as an ingredient in risotto or a one-way ticket to a psychedelic wonderland. Sophia Wang sees a different future for fungi.
Sitting on the back porch of a San Francisco coffee shop, she fans a piece of worn, indigo-colored leather made from fungi grown in her company's lab.
"It's a new thing in the world," Wang, CEO and cofounder of MycoWorks, says of the mushroom-like material.
Sophia Studio Candid Courtesy of JJ Casas : 845a.comSophia Wang, CEO and cofounder of MycoWorks. JJ Casas/845a.com
The San Francisco-based startup is engineering a sustainable and versatile material from fungi that may one day be used to build houses, batteries, cars, apparel, and even spaceships. According to MycoWorks, fungi is the industrial material of the future.
This week, the company announced it's partnering with two global footwear companies to bring fungi apparel to the market. MycoWorks' soft, malleable, and weatherproof materials will replace leather and foams in shoes.
When the footware companies approached Wang and her cofounder Phil Ross, a sort of fungi evangelist, about replacing the traditional leather in its goods, the appeal was obvious. In the apparel industry, MycoWorks could sell handcrafted, organically made shoes and accessories at a high margin because people expect to pay a lot for premium goods.
They're not made from mushrooms, exactly, but rather, their roots.
mycelium fungusMycelia. Wikimedia Commons
Mycelia are thread-like masses of fungi that grow underground. They run through almost every square inch of earth, delivering nutrients and allowing plants to "talk" to each other.
In an underground workshop in the city, Wang, Ross, and a lean team of artists, biologists, and mycologists (or fungi specialists) are giving new life to millennia-old mycelia.
They take fungi from nature and place small pieces of the mycelia tissue into jars of discarded organic material — corn husks, sawdust, and other agricultural waste that would otherwise rot or be burned. In three to seven days, the mycelia fibers expand, web, and form clumps of material.
Phil Studio Candid2 Courtesy of JJ Casas : 845a.comPhil Ross, CTO and cofounder of MycoWorks. JJ Casas/845a.com
The team removes this new growth and places it into molds of every shape and size. The material hardens and dries before being fired up in an oven.
Ross compares production to making ravioli from scratch.
"It's handcrafted, locally grown, artisanal fungus," he says, half-jokingly.
"Small-scale, small batches," Wang says.
With a little engineering, the final product can be nearly anything: sturdy or flexible, heavy or lightweight. It may be shaped like a cement brick or laid thin like the lambskin leather in a woman's clutch. It's more resilient than concrete and easily composted.
MycoWorks leather coilMycoWorks
When the company was founded in 2013, Wang and Ross worked on developing mycelia-based bricks that could replace common construction materials. But the housing developers they pitched expected the commodity to match prices of materials that have been used in the industrial sector for centuries. Every square foot of mycelia material costs $50 to make — a cut above the cost of wood, cork, and synthetic plastics.
MycoWorks struggled to find a market. So when the apparel industry came knocking in 2015, the company jumped at the opportunity.
A residency at the biotech startup accelerator IndieBio this year helped MycoWorks craft its vision for the future.
"People always advertise the materials that are on their bodies and very proudly tell their stories, and that doesn't seem to be the case with home-building," Ross says. "People don't talk about their drywall in the same way they talk about their watch."
MycoWorks leather patternsMycoWorks
MycoWorks has already provided samples to artisans for inspiration and expects to prototype their designs before the end of the year. We may see mycelia-infused products on sale as early as 2017.
The company is running a battery of tests to gather more information about fungi products. Buyers will want to know how the mycelia leather holds up to high temperatures and normal wear and tear. Will it decompose over time? (They're unsure.) Does it smell? (Not really, I determined after taking a whiff.)
Wang and Ross plan to move beyond apparel once funds are available for further testing and large-scale manufacturing. They're looking to automation, which could help reduce the cost of producing mycelia to $5 per square foot by 2020.
If MycoWorks gets its way, materials made from fungi might someday blend into our environment without fanfare. They won't be marketed as "good for the environment."
"It is of the environment," Wang says.