Adamo Foods, a deeptech food company producing whole-cut meat alternatives using fungal fermentation, has received funding for a major €10 million project from the Circular Bio-based Europe Joint Undertaking (CBE-JU). Part of the European Union's Horizon Europe programme, the award will accelerate the commercial-scale deployment of Adamo's proprietary fermentation technology.
The three-year project, named MycoStruct, involves a consortium of 12 companies and research institutes from across Europe: Adamo Foods, Bidfood Group, Bühler, NIRAS, TU Delft, TFTAK, Bio Base Europe, Haute Ecole Spécialisée de Suisse Occidentale, Celabor, TBW Research, Holoss, and Fenix TNT. The consortium has two stated objectives: to scale Adamo's products to market, and to valorise industry sidestreams into nutritious protein.
Adamo addresses what it describes as a critical gap in the meat alternatives market, developing products that compete with meat on taste, texture, nutrition, and cost. Leveraging a triple-patented fungal fermentation process, the platform produces whole-cut alternatives - beginning with steak - that mimic the complex fibrous matrix of animal muscle tissue. Products contain only five natural ingredients, carry a higher protein quality than conventional beef, more fibre, and zero cholesterol.
Through MycoStruct, Adamo and its partners will scale production from pilot plant to commercial scale. The mycelium steak already delivers a 93% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions compared to conventional beef, achieved through the use of sustainable feedstocks and advanced biotech. The project has received a STEP Seal award from the European Commission - a seal of excellence recognising high-quality innovation aligned with the EU's economic and environmental goals, which has been awarded to only a handful of biotech projects historically.
This is a transformative milestone for Adamo and a powerful validation of our potential to reshape the global food system. We're not just creating another meat alternative; we're building a scalable, circular bio-economy that proves delicious, whole-cut steaks can be produced without the animal and affordably. This funding allows us to move rapidly toward industrial scale with the help of some of Europe's leading food and fermentation players, bringing our healthy, sustainable, and no-compromise products to plates across Europe and beyond. We are looking forward to working with the consortium partners and other interested parties to scale even faster.
